Charles A. Berry, M.D. Space Medicine Library

The aerospace medicine program and the Moody Medical Library at UTMB are happy to announce the Charles A. Berry Space Medicine Library. Dr. Berry has had a distinguished career in space medicine.  He served as the Director of Medical Operations and Research at the Manned Spacecraft Center during the Gemini and Apollo programs and later was appointed Director of Life Sciences at NASA Headquarters in Washington.  In 1966 Truman G. Blocker, Jr., M.D. appointed Dr. Berry as the first chairman of the UTMB aerospace medicine department.

The aerospace medicine program at UTMB is committed to preserving the historical operational medical data from the space program and seeing that it is available to historians, students, residents, and current and future medical investigators.  

The library serves as a resource for the UTMB aerospace medicine residency program and for physicians, investigators, and historians that are involved in the space program.  The Library has also purchased three rare titles dealing with the early history of air and space exploration.  The first book was authored by the French physiologist considered to be the founder of modern aerospace medicine, Paul Bert.  His work, La pression barometrique (1878), is known as the greatest work in the history of altitude physiology.  The other two works are by Bert’s partner, Denis Jourdanet, written just a few years earlier and were said to be the basis of Bert’s work.

This new grouping of books and archives is housed in the Blocker History of Medicine Collections on the 4^th floor of the Library.  The Moody Medical Library is located on Market Street, one block west of the parking garage.