by Leigh Ann Gardner (Senior Grants Manager)
June 1: Michiyo Tsujimura, the first woman in Japan to receive a PhD in agriculture, died on June 1, 1969. Born in Okegawa, Japan in 1888, and attended the Tokyo Prefecture Women’s Normal School, where she was inspired by science. After graduating in 1913, she spent several years as a teacher at Yokohama High School and Saitama Women’s Normal School. In 1920, she began working as a laboratory assistant at Hokkaido Imperial University in an unpaid position, as the university didn’t accept female students at that time. Working in the lab of Umetaro Suzaki, who had PhD in agriculture, she researched nutritional chemistry. In 1924, she and a colleague discovered that green tea contains vitamin C and published an article on the findings. This publication is credited with increasing green tea exports to North America. She continued to study green tea and eventually isolated the tannin and catechin in green tea. Her research on green tea became the basis of her PhD, which she received in 1932. She spent many years as a researcher and professor until her retirement in 1963. You can learn more about her life and work here and here.
June 9: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, a physician and surgeon who is known for his study of joint disease, was born June 9, 1783, in Wiltshire, England. After spending several years studying medicine and surgery, he was appointed an assistant surgeon at St. George’s Hospital in London in 1808. During his career, he worked as a surgeon at the hospital as well researching joint diseases. In 1818, he published Pathological and Surgical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints. This work led many surgeons to begin taking a more conservative approach to amputations, which led to a reduction in amputations. In 1810, he was elected a member of the Royal Society and served as its president in 1858. He also served as the first president of the General Medical Council. There are several surgical conditions named after him, such as Brodie’s abscess and Brodie’s tumor. You can learn more about his life and research here and here. You can read his book, Pathological and Surgical Observations on the Diseases of the Joints, here.
June 16: John Snow, an English physician known for his contributions to epidemiology and anesthesiology, died on June 16, 1858. Born in York in 1813, he began his medical apprenticeship at the age of 14 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. While acting as a surgeon apprentice in 1832, he encountered a cholera epidemic which influenced his later career. After completing his apprenticeship, he attended the University of London, where he received a medical degree in 1844. He became interested in anesthesia in 1846 after attending a demonstration of ether anesthesia. Snow’s interest in the subject led him to develop a portable ether inhaler, which provided for safer administration of anesthesia. He also studied chloroform anesthesia, researching the physiological effects of chloroform and identifying the correct dosages to administer to patients. In both 1853 and 1857, Snow administered chloroform to Queen Victoria while she was in labor, leading to an acceptance of giving anesthesia to women during childbirth. In the late 1840s, Snow wrote an essay stating that cholera was not transmitted by foul air. During the 1854 cholera outbreak in London, Snow began mapping cholera deaths, leading him to identify the source of the outbreak, which was a contaminated water pump. In 1855, he published, “On the Mode of Communication of Cholera”, which relied on his statistical data to analysis patterns of cholera transmission, and his work is considered one of the earliest examples of the epidemiological method. You can learn more about his life and work here and here. You can read “On the Mode of Communication of Cholera” here.
June 25: On June 25, 1924, Professor Albert Calmette of the Pasteur Institute announced the development of the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis. He and his colleague, Camille Guérin began researching an antituberculosis vaccine at the Pasteur Institute in 1900. By 1913, they were ready to begin a clinical trial on cattle of a vaccine when World War I intervened. By 1921, they were ready to trial the vaccine in humans, which they first tested on an infant at the Charité Hospital in Paris. Over the next several years, they tested different ways to administer the vaccine, before settling on an oral vaccine. In 1924, the Pasteur Institute began mass production of the vaccine, and over 100,000 infants were vaccinated over the next four years. Research showed a decline in tuberculosis mortality, and doctors in other countries began using the vaccine. In 1930, the Lübeck disaster in Germany shook confidence in the vaccine, as 73 of 250 infants vaccinated died and another 135 infants were infected with tuberculosis. An investigation showed the disaster was caused by contamination in the Lübeck laboratories, and not by the vaccine itself. The BCG vaccine became compulsory in France in 1950. You can learn more about the development of this vaccine here and here.