More Black Women in Medicine
There have been many black women who have made contributions in the field of medicine. In these three posts, we will highlight 5 of them. I am going in somewhat chronological order having started with Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler and Mary Eliza Mahoney last week. Our theme is Black Women Firsts. Dr. Crumpler was the first black woman to receive an M.D. and Mary Mahoney was the first black licensed nurse.
The women in this week’s post encountered incredible prejudice. It is important that we recognize this for the sake of the futures of other black women. I thank God for these women and the thousands of people who have been helped by their achievement should also give credit where credit is due.
It has occurred to me that there have been many “First” Black Women in America since the 1800’s. We should not be surprised since black women have only been recently getting the opportunities to pursue their dreams. For me that means that all of the women in these posts should be honored and respected for their courage to persevere in following their hopes and goals no matter how much prejudice and abuse was thrown at them. Untold thousands of people have benefitted from their work.
Alice Ball – “Ball Method” for Leprosy Treatment
We are privileged this week to relate the stories of more amazing black women firsts. Alice Ball was a chemist who developed the first successful treatment for leprosy (also known as Hansen’s disease).
Alice Augusta Ball was born in Seattle in 1892 to a middle-class family. In 1903 they moved to Hawaii in the hopes of getting some relief for her father’s arthritis. Sadly, he died shortly afterwards, and the family returned to Seattle. Alice graduated from high school in 1910. She received college degrees from the University of Washington in pharmaceutical chemistry (1912) and pharmacy (1914). She then went to the College of Hawaii where she became the first woman, and the first African American woman, to receive a master’s degree in chemistry in 1915. She accepted a position there in the chemistry department to do research and to teach. She was 23 years old.
Alice worked hard to come up with an effective treatment using the oil from the chaulmoogra tree. Her treatment, known as the “Ball method” was the first injectable leprosy treatment using oil from the chaulmoogra tree. This oil had been used for many years in Chinese and Indian medicine as a topical ointment. It was only moderately successful. By isolating the oil into fatty acid components, Alice was able to manipulate them into a water-soluble injectable form. The treatment was eventually used for over 30 years until the sulfone drugs were introduced.
The treatment was used worldwide, and thousands of patients were able to leave isolated lives in hospitals to return to their families. Where many people had died each year from leprosy, now they could return home completely cured.
The story takes a sad turn. Alice died the next year, 1916, from inhaling chlorine gas in a laboratory accident. She was only 24 years old and did not get to see the immense impact of her discovery. One can only imagine what wonderful things she could have accomplished if she had lived.
What’s even more tragic is that the president of the college, Dr. Arthur Dean, continued her research without giving her credit for it. He even claimed the medical discovery for himself and renamed it the “Dean Method”. It was not unusual for men to take credit for women’s discoveries.[1]
It was six years before Dr. Harry T. Hollmann, assistant surgeon at Kahili published a paper giving Alice Ball the credit she deserved. Dr. Hollmann was had encouraged Alice when she began working with the chaulmoogra oil. Even though his paper was published, it was many years before Alice received the proper recognition for her work.
In 2000 the University of Hawaii placed a bronze plaque in front of a chaulmoogra tree on their campus to honor Alice Ball. February 28 was declared “Alice Ball Day”. In 2007, she was posthumously awarded the Regent’s Medal of Distinction. In 2017, Paul Wermager established a scholarship in the College of Natural Sciences in her honor for students who pursued a degree in chemistry, biology, or microbiology.
We can admire Alice along with the other wonderful Black American Female Firsts. She overcame racial and gender prejudice to pursue her dream. As with the other women in these posts, she desired to help people. The thousands who returned to their families were very grateful.
Marie Daly- First PhD in Chemistry
How tragic that so many women who have contributed to the sciences and medicine should be overlooked, especially black women. In our last story, Alice Ball was forgotten for nearly 80 years. Now many people are researching their stories and bringing them to our attention. I am blessed by the stories and I hope you are too.
Dr. Marie Maynard Daly is another amazing first – the first black woman with a PhD in chemistry. Dr. Daly was among the first researchers to discover the effects of high blood pressure on cardiovascular disease. She contributed to the warnings against smoking because of its harmful effects on the lungs and heart. She also discovered many details behind the organization and structure of DNA. The men who are credited with discovering the double helix backbone of DNA, Watson and Crick, mentioned her work in their Nobel acceptance speech.
Dr. Marie Maynard Daly was born in Queens, New York City on April 16, 1921. She dreamed of being a chemist at a very early age. Her mother and father both encouraged her in her love for science. Marie read many biographies of scientists and read science adventure novels. Her parents enrolled her in the Hunter College High School in Manhattan, an all-female college. Marie graduated with a bachelor’s in chemistry in 1942 at the top of her class. The college offered her a fellowship which made it possible for her to enroll in a graduate program in chemistry at New York University. She also paid for her education in part as a laboratory assistant. In 1943 Marie graduated from NYU with a master’s degree in chemistry.
Marie enrolled in Columbia University’s Ph.D. program in chemistry in 1944. While she was there, a senior female scientist, Dr. Caldwell helped Marie with her studies. Dr. Daly graduated in 1947 with a Ph.D. in chemistry, becoming the first black female in the U.S. to hold a doctorate in chemistry.
After that, Dr. Daly spent two years working as a professor at Howard University. She then obtained a grant from the American Cancer Society to do research at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. There she worked with Dr. Alfred E. Mirsky, a molecular biologist doing cellular research. The two published their findings on how cells, histones, and the genetic material in cells.
In 1955, Dr. Daly returned to Columbia University to teach biochemistry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. It was here that she made perhaps her most important contribution to research. She and her collaborator, Dr. Quentin B. Deming, uncovered the connection between high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure.
In 1961, Dr. Marie Daly married Dr. Vincent Clark, a physician at Harlem Hospital in New York. She kept her working name because she was publishing professional papers. Though highly intelligent and skilled, Marie had many other interests. She enjoyed music and played the flute until later in life when she learned the guitar. She was an avid gardener, and she enjoyed dogs which she loved very much.
From 1958-1963, Dr. Daly served as a researcher for many organizations including the AHA (American Heart Association). In 1960, Dr. Daly left Columbia and went to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine to work as a professor of biochemistry. In her later years, she shifted her focus to observe muscle cells and the effects of age on the circulatory system. She also studied the effects of smoking on lung and heart health.
Other tributes include membership in the New York Academy of Sciences, tenure at the Albert Einstein College, and recognition by the National Technical Association as one of the top 50 women in science, engineering, and technology (1999). Dr. Daly’s work is credited with changing the way researchers and doctors think about diet and its effects on the heart. Her discoveries were the precursors to the research which eventually found the links between heart disease, stroke, atherosclerosis, and high blood pressure. Her work on histones in DNA. Other researchers, such as Dr. Watson and R. Crick, built on her work. In 2016, the Dr. Marie M. Daly Academy of Excellence was founded in St. Albans, NY.
Dr. Daly is also remembered for her work in developing programs to help students from marginalized groups get and education in science. One of these, the Martin Luther King-Robert F. Kennedy Program helped black students prepare for college. She recruited Black and Puerto Rican students for the Albert Einstein College. She mentored many who would become famous scientists including Dr. Francine B. Essine, the first Black woman to obtain a Ph.D. in biology.
Dr. Daly’s story is one more of many courageous black women. When she earned her degree, only 2% of black women had college degrees. She went on to live a life of service to others – with discoveries in health that would benefit untold thousands and by contributing to the education of disadvantaged students. These students have carried on the legacy of her work.
Conclusion – I thank God for helping these women achieve their visions and I pray that the racial prejudice that still exists in our society would continue to lessen. Things have been improving in the last few decades, but we could go further. God grant that people would see everyone as equally created under God and should have equal opportunity.
[1] Ada Lovelace, first Analytical machine, Lise Meitner, how to split atoms, Vera Rubin, dark matter in the universe, Jocelyn Burnell, pulsars, Rosalind Franklin, DNA double-Helix structure, and many more.
