Manuscripts and oral history: common interests and problems in the history of medicine.

The acceptance of the tape-recorded interview as a research tool and historical record in the history of medicine suggests some problems both for the researcher with respect to resource materials and for the repository. A direct relationship exists between manuscript collections and the oral history product, and it would be in the interest of the oral historian, the curator of manuscripts, and the repository if a unified conceptual approach were taken in the acquisition and preservation of manuscript records and oral history interviews.