Hattie Alexander: The First Woman to Head a National Medical Organization
Image via the Library of Congress
How she saved thousands of infants’ lives before leading the American Pediatric Society
Hattie Alexander, MD, was much more of an athlete than a bookworm in her younger years. After graduating from Goucher College in her home state of Maryland, however, Dr. Alexander went to work as a bacteriologist for the U.S. Public Health Service and Maryland Public Health Service. It was during this time that she discovered a passion for medicine and research.
Though highly unusual for a woman in the early 20th century, Dr. Alexander was admitted to the medical school at Johns Hopkins University, where she excelled in her studies and received her doctorate in 1930. Dr. Alexander continued her medical training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, followed by a residency at New York City’s Babies Hospital (part of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center), and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. While at Columbia, she rose from adjunct assistant pediatrician to attending pediatrician, and then on to a full professorship in 1958.
The Race to Save Infants
During her time at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Alexander became interested in influenza meningitis, a disease that was almost 100 percent fatal, leading to a high infant mortality rate. Noting the success of rabbit serum in treating pneumonia, Dr. Alexander experimented with the same serum and, in 1939, developed the first cure for influenza meningitis. The breakthrough dropped the fatality rate to 20 percent, saving countless lives.
Dr. Alexander continued refining the treatment throughout the 1940s, effectively ending influenza meningitis-related deaths in infants. Later, Dr. Alexander’s work with influenza meningitis led her to focus on antibiotics, and how the bacteria genetically mutated to become resistant to them.
Over the span of her career, Dr. Alexander served on the influenza commission under the Secretary of War during World War II and consulted with the New York City Department of Health. After chairing the American Pediatric Society’s governing council and serving as vice president, Dr. Alexander became its president in 1964, making her the first woman to head a national medical organization.
Dr. Alexander also published 150 academic papers and was a frequent honorary lecturer. She remained active in medicine until she died of metastases in 1968 at the age of 67. While her contributions to research and medicine have been more significant than she’s been given credit for, her hard work and pioneering spirit enabled an incalculable number of infants to grow into adulthood.
In recognition of her achievements, Dr. Alexander received:
The E. Mead Johnson Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics (1942)
The Elizabeth Blackwell Award from the New York Infirmary (1956)
The Oscar B. Hunter Memorial Award of the American Therapeutic Society (1961)
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