Papers include a handwritten journal, school exercises, and lecture notes written by an unnamed author with the initials J. F. R. The author was a Physician who apparently attended medical lectures at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (1849-1850) and University of Louisiana in New Orleans. He briefly served as medical officer on the steamer Falcon in the Caribbean (1853) and as medical officer at the military asylum at East Pascagoula, Mississippi (1854-1855).
