Woman of note!

 

"It’s the birthday of American pediatrician and microbiologist Hattie Alexander was born in Baltimore (1901). Alexander would go on to develop a new serum to effectively treat the deadly childhood illness influenzal meningitis, also known as Hib.

Alexander attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University in her hometown. In 1932, she was appointed as lifelong instructor and researcher in pediatrics at Columbia University in New York.

Her work focused on developing a better serum for curing influenzal meningitis, which killed virtually all the infants and young children that it infected. She experimented with rabbit-based serums to great success, and by the mid-1940s she had virtually erased infant mortality from the disease. She was also one of the first microbiologists to study antibiotic resistance, which remains a major problem today. In 1964, she became one of the first women selected to lead a national medical organization as president of the American Pediatric Society.

Her Columbia colleagues characterized her as a brilliant scientist who always demanded high standard of proof from her students and residents, constantly challenging, “How do you know that?” “What makes you think so?” and “Where is your evidence?”

Alexander died in 1968 of breast cancer, at 67 years old. After her death, scientists developed a Hib vaccine — bringing cases of influenzal meningitis down to only two in every 100,000 children." Today's Writer's Almanac