Oral Histories

Interview of Elmer Belt

UCLA professor of urology and collector of materials related to Leonardo da Vinci.
Subtitle:
Surgeon and Bibliophile
Series:
Z: Orphan Interviews pre 1999
Topic:
Science, Medicine, and Technology
UCLA and University of California History
UCLA Faculty
Biographical Note:
UCLA professor of urology and collector of materials related to Leonardo da Vinci.
Interviewer:
De Vecsey, Esther
Interviewee:
Belt, Elmer
Supporting Documents:
Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
Language:
English
Copyright:
Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
Abstract:
Childhood memories of Chicago; move to Los Angeles; education; Mary Ruth Smart; attending University of California, Berkeley; fellow student Robert Gordon Sproul; collecting books on medical history and Florence Nightingale; first-year medical studies, 1916; George W. Corner; Herbert McLean Evans; surgical training at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston; start of private practice in Pacific Mutual Building, Los Angeles, 1923; insurance examinations for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; Barlow Medical Library; George Dock and William Dock; county hospital work in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties; reviving medical school at University of Southern California; efforts to start medical school at UCLA; Robert Gordon Sproul, Edward A. Dickson, and Earl Warren; Edwin Pauley and Harry S Truman; supporting Upton Sinclair for California governor, 1934; appointed to California State Board of Public Health by Governor Culbert L. Olson; continuing service on Board of Public Health under Governor Warren; collecting Leonardo da Vinci materials; library housed in office at 1893 Wilshire Boulevard; medical education at University of California, Berkeley; appointment to Hooper Institute; urological research with Frank Hinman; Hollywood Presbyterian, Good Samaritan, and other Los Angeles hospitals; Upton Sinclair as patient; Jake Zeitlin and Josephine Ver Brugge Zeitlin; Dust Bowl émigrés and public health; Eleanor Roosevelt and compounds for workers near Tulare, California; Ruth Belt and the UCLA Art Council; Kate Steinitz and Vinciana collection; Florence Nightingale and Silas Weir Mitchell collections; Carlo Pedretti; Ladislao Reti; the Madrid Codices; audience with Pope Pius XII; return from Europe at start of World War II; Sir Husain Suhrawardy.