This series contains the personal and professional correspondence of Dr. Walter Channing. The personal correspondence includes letters to and from his brothers Rev. William Ellery Channing (1870-1842) and George Channing (1789-1863), his sister Lucy Russel (1787-1863), and his grandson Walter Channing. Professional correspondence includes letters from grateful patients, letters to and from other physicians regarding mutual cases, and letters sent to The New England Journal of Medicine and Surgery during Channing's tenure as editor. Also, letters of appointment to various organizations, including the Boylston Medical Society and the Boston Employment Society; letters confirming his appointment to the positions of Assistant Attending Physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital (1821 and 1833) and Attending Physician at the Boston Lying-in Hospital (1833); and an invitation to present the annual address to the Massachusetts Medical Society in 1833.

Includes lectures and notes on lectures delivered to midwifery and legal medicine classes at Harvard Medical School, addresses to various organizations, and lectures on non-medical topics.

Midwifery lectures cover topics including pregnancy, fetal development, labor, infanticide, menstruation, and diseases and disorders of the female reproductive system. Legal medicine lectures consider insanity, suffocation, toxicology, and sudden death, as well as the role of physicians in the legal system. Many of his lectures on midwifery and legal medicine also contain examples from his cases. Additional medical lectures cover topics including cholera, pericarditis, pneumonia, and homeopathy. Also included are addresses on medical topics presented to the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Society for Obstetric Improvement.

Lectures on non-medical topics cover subjects ranging from art and philosophy to politics and the United States Constitution. Also included are addresses to non-medical organizations such as the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and the Washington Benevolent Society of Massachusetts. Other topics covered reflect Channing's interest in social and moral reform, especially temperance, including notes and lectures on temperance reform and public health, and addresses delivered to the Massachusetts Temperance Society and the Harvard Temperance Society.

Contains case reports and notes on cases attended by Walter Channing, including Channing's midwifery casebook (and photocopy), kept from 1811-1822, which contains notes on approximately 195 cases attended by Channing. Entries note names and ages of patients, dates of treatment, relevant medical history, the sex of the child delivered, and general notes on the delivery including the progression of labor and the presentation of the fetus. Channing also provides thorough accounts of cases involving difficult labor, which he defined as labor lasting more than 24 hours, cases in which the fetus did not present head-first, or cases involving hemorrhaging, convulsions, or other medical emergencies. This box also includes notes on several additional midwifery and general medicine cases, many of which are undated and/or fragmentary.

Contains autobiographical writings, travel memoirs, wills, and account books of Walter Channing. The autobiographical writings include descriptions of his early life and medical career and later reminiscences of his career at Harvard Medical College. The travel memoirs include a typescript and two manuscript copies (including one kept in a scrapbook by his wife Barbara Channing) of his work, "A Sketch of a Short Tour into the Highlands of Scotland in the Autumn of 1810," later published as part of a larger work, Professional Reminiscences of Foreign Travel (1852). The manuscript for another published work, A Physician's Vacation; or, a Summer in Europe (1856), is also included.

Other personal papers include two wills, written in 1865 and 1866, and a brief account book, kept from 1869-1871. The account book lists property owned by Channing, as well as stocks, bonds, insurance policies, and interest earned on investments. This box also includes a folder of miscellaneous biographical information, including obituaries and letters of condolence for Barbara and Walter Channing.