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The Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection documents the work of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission, the legacy of the commission's discoveries, the lives of individuals who were connected to the commission, and twentieth century campaigns to shape public memory of the commission. Items in the collection date from 1800 to 1998, with the bulk of the items dating from 1864 to 1974. A wide range of formats are represented in the collection including, but not limited to the following: articles, artifacts, audiocassettes, bills (legislative records), biographies, charts (graphic documents), correspondence, diaries, editorials, interviews, journals (periodicals), magazines, maps, medical records, military records, negatives (photographic), notes, photographs, reports, reprints, scrapbooks, and speeches. Unique materials in the collection are supplemented with copies of original documents and photographs housed in other institutions (e.g. the U.S. National Archives). Most of the materials in the collection were collected or created by Nobel laureate Philip Showalter Hench while researching the history of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission.

The Philip S. Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection documents the work of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission, the legacy of the commission’s discoveries, the lives of individuals who were connected to the commission, and twentieth century campaigns to shape public memory of the commission. Items in the collection date from 1800 to 1998, with the bulk of the items dating from 1864 to 1974. A wide range of formats are represented in the collection including, but not limited to the following: articles, artifacts, audiocassettes, bills (legislative records), biographies, charts (graphic documents), correspondence, diaries, editorials, interviews, journals (periodicals), magazines, maps, medical records, military records, negatives (photographic), notes, photographs, reports, reprints, scrapbooks, and speeches. Unique materials in the collection are supplemented with copies of original documents and photographs housed in other institutions (e.g. the U.S. National Archives). Most of the materials in the collection were collected or created by Nobel laureate Philip Showalter Hench while researching the history of the U.S. Army Yellow Fever Commission.

The collection consists of three letters written by Pvt. Charles N. Hawkins and Pvt. George Rock to Hawkins's cousin, Dollie L. Eakin, between August 1863 and April 1864.

This collection contains materials dealing with the Panama Canal, the public health activities of the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations Public Health Service, and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Also includes correspondence to and from Daniel E. Wright while a colonel on the staff of Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell and at the U.S. Middle Eastern Command Headquarters in Cairo, as well as photographs from his travels.

Four letters written by James H. Cronkhite (1827-1873), serving in Company I, 4th Minnesota Infantry during the American Civil War, to wife Jennie in Warsaw (Rice County), Minnesota, from camps and a division hospital in Mississippi.

Created in 1865, this CDV depicts John Wilkes Booth being shot on April 26, 1865, and is published by Hacker, Rhode Island, 1865. The drawing shows David Herold being captured outside the barn. On the verso is advertising for "Bicknell's Syrup", a cholera remedy, which contains description of a "purely vegetable" remedy for cholera prepared by Edward Sutton, Providence, Rhode Island, Demas Barnes & Co., as well as a testimony from wholesale dealer Benjamin Hall. Booth (1838-1865) assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, towards the end of the American Civil War. At a barn in Virginia on April 26, Booth was killed and one of his conspirators, David Herold, was arrested. Herold was executed on July 7, 1865, alongside three other conspirators in the assassination plot.

The collection includes the diary documenting the life of a Methodist circuit pastor, salesman, and farmer from Washington, Ohio, from 1878 to 1881, including comments on religious practices, death and disease, farming, business, and elections.

The collection consists of the diary of William J. Lacey, a private with Company C, 11th Regiment, Mississippi Infantry. Entries in the diary are scattered and range from simple notes about the weather and letter writing to Lacey's experiences at First Manassas/Battle of Bull Run, and most date from 1861.

The collection contains four letters written by Union American Civil War soldier William Moore, Private, Company E, 27th Kentucky Infantry. Letters primarily detail Moore's desire to return home and concerns over both his and his wife's health. An additional two letters by Capt. J.R. Robinson concern Moore's poor health and his subsequent death.