Überblick
The partial bequest from the ophthalmologist, Orientalist, and Arabist Max Meyerhof (1874–1945) belongs to the Ludwig Keimer Collection (1892–1957) who obtained it after the former’s death in 1945, along with a small part of Meyerhof’s private library.
Meyerhof’s partial bequest is classified under the signature Keimer-Mey 1 to 301. There are over 300 of Meyerhof’s own publications, some of which are only present in the form of manuscripts or typescripts. In addition to these, there is a variety of further material in bundles containing excerpts, notices, diaries, photographs, correspondence, newspaper articles, file documents such as identification papers, testimonials, and other documents. The greater part of the inventory “work of other authors” within Keimer’s collection also comes from Meyerhof, in particular the historical medical and pharmaceutical collections, along with journals on scientific history (Keimer-[Fach]-[A bis Z]). The complete surveying and indexing of this bequest remain a desideratum.
Among the highlights is a travel diary from the winter of 1900/1901. This dairy was discovered by the two sisters Gisela (1925–2020) and Waltrud Kircher in the course of reorganising the Ludwig Keimer Collection during their employment at the DAI Cairo. They contacted Elise Meyerhof, Max Meyerhof's widow, who was still living in Cairo at the time, and she provided them with further documents. G. Kircher had already begun preparations for the publication of the travel journal. But it was not until more than 40 years later that the project was taken up again by Isolde Lehnert, who published the travel journal as an annotated edition.