Inventor Name
Chapple, Charles C.
Repository
College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Historical Collections of the Library
19 South 22nd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
http://www.collphyphil.org/library.asp
Physical Description
11 boxes and 1 oversize folder (4 linear ft.)
Summary
Correspondence, manuscripts and typescripts, printed material, and photographs, drawings, and slides, 1901-1983, documenting career and research of Charles C. Chapple, particularly work on congenital dislocation of hip in infants; fetal abnormalities and developmental defects; and development of Chapple Incubator and Isolette for premature infants. Series 1 contains material on Chapple's life and career, including typescript chapters of professional reminiscences. Documentation of Chapple's research projects in Series 2 concerns congenital dislocation of the hip, including correspondence with Sir Denis Browne, and Chapple Incubator and Isolette. Incubation material includes correspondence; patent; notes on modifications; historical material; transcript of oral interview with Chapple; and newsclippings and printed material. Series includes files on other projects, including Chapple's "Random memos", documenting discussions, experiments, personal reflections, and published references, 1948-1950, on hormones and other possible research topics. Printed advertisements for Chapple inventions, including Incubator and Isolette, in Series 3. Series 4 contains typescripts and drafts of speeches and presentations; Series 5 contains typescripts and drafts of published and unpublished works. Subjects include congenital deformities, fetal developmental defects, and infant incubation. Series 6 contains drawings and paintings, with early diagrams of Incubator (drawn in 10th edition of L. Emmett Holt's Diseases of infancy and childhood) and chair-bed for congenital hip dislocation patients; photographs; photographic slides used in presentations on infant incubation, developmental defects, and interaction of alumninum and mercury; and lantern slides, primarily images of hip dislocation patients with clinical information. Charles Culloden Chapple, Philadelphia pediatrician, was born on 27 Apr. 1903. He died on 23 Mar. 1979. Chapple received an M.D. from the University of Michigan, 1928, and came to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as a resident in pediatrics in 1929. He served as pediatrician to several Philadelphia-area hospitals. During World War II, Chapple was a consultant to the U.S. Army's Chemical Warfare Service. After the war, he became Senior Physician at Children's Hospital and Consultant in Pediatrics to the U.S. Naval Hospital. He also held professorships in pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine. Chapple assumed a post at Howard University in 1958, then became Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in 1966. He is credited with the invention of humidification and inhalation devices; a chair-bed for congenital hip dislocation patients, a condition he was the first to describe; and, in 1936, the first environmentally-stable pediatric incubator. After World War II, Chapple redesigned the incubator in plastic. It became known as the "Isolette". Charles C. Chapple became a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1950.
