by Leigh Ann Gardner (Senior Grants Manager)
August 2: Known by many as the father of macular diseases, J. Donald M. Gass was born on August 2, 1928, on Prince Edward Island. He was the son of a prominent tuberculosis specialist, R.S. Gass, and the Gass family moved to Nashville during J. Donald’s childhood. He received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University in 1950 and then served as a line officer in the Korean War. Following his time in the military, Gass attended medical school and received his MD from Vanderbilt in 1957. Following training at the University of Iowa, Johns Hopkins, and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, he worked at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami for decades before returning to Vanderbilt as a professor in 1995. During his career, he is credited with making significant contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of macular disease. In the 1960s, he pioneered the use of fundus and fluorescein angiography camera for the study of retinal diseases, and he designed a scleral marker with a circular tip for marking retinal breaks. In 1970 he published the first edition of Stereoscopic Atlas of Macular Diseases: Diagnosis and Treatment which described several hundred eye diseases. Gass received the 2005 Laureate Recognition Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology in 2004 and was named one of the 10 most influential ophthalmologists of the 20th century by the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery. You can learn more about Gass and his accomplishments here and here.
August 10: Aletta Jacobs, the first female physician in the Netherlands and advocate for women’s suffrage, died on August 10, 1929. Born in 1854 to a physician, she expressed her desire to become a doctor from an early age, although women were not allowed to matriculate into university in the Netherlands at the time. After receiving a diploma in pharmacy in 1869, she and her father spearheaded a letter-writing campaign so that she could be admitted to the University of Groningen. Her efforts were successful, and she received her medical degree in 1879. After seeking further training in London, Jacobs returned to Amsterdam and set up her medical practice. She offered a free clinic for women two days a week and also offered birth control to women. She also created and tested a new diaphragm for women, which became known as the Dutch cap. In 1900, she published a book about female anatomy known as The Woman: Her physique and internal organs. She also actively worked in women’s suffrage at this time, and in 1903, she gave up her medical practice to devote herself to working for women’s suffrage with the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. During World War I, she was also a dedicated peace activist that worked hard to convince world leaders to end the war. In 1919, her work for suffrage paid off in the Netherlands when women gained the right to vote. You can learn more about Jacobs’s life and work here and here.
August 19: The first Royal Astronomer of England, John Flamsteed, was born on August 19, 1646, in Derbyshire, England. Interested in astronomy and mathematics, he attended Jesus College, Cambridge, although ill-health led to him having to postpone his studies at time. Placed on a committee in 1674 to test a lunar distance method (way of determining longitude using the position of the moon) improved by Sieur de St. Pierre, he was then appointed by Charles II as the first Royal Astronomer in 1675. Tasked by the king with “rectifying the tables of the motions of the heavens, and the places of the fixed stars,” he began his decades-long work to create accurate star maps. He has one of the earliest known sightings of Uranus, although he catalogued as a star and not a planet. He made observations of the moon to compare to Newton’s theory of gravity, measured latitude, created tables of atmospheric refraction and tidal patterns, and ultimately created a catalogue of over 3,000 fixed stars, the Historia Coelestis Britannica. Refusing to publish the catalogue until he was confidant everything was correct, some of his colleagues and fellow scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton, felt that Flamsteed was unreasonably withholding his work from the public. In fact, Newton pushed Flamsteed to provide sealed copies of his work to the Royal Society, and Flamsteed was furious when the Royal Society then had 400 copies of this work published. Flamsteed recovered 300 copies of his work and had it publicly burned in Greenwich Park in 1716. Working on his star catalogue up until his death in 1719, it was published posthumously in 1725. You can learn more about Flamsteed’s life here. You can access Historia Coelestis Britannica here.
August 23: Born on August 23, 1944, Antonia Coello Novello was the first woman and the first Hispanic person to serve as Surgeon General of the United States, serving from 1990-1993. Born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, she suffered as a child from a congenital condition known as congenital megacolon, and her family could not afford the surgery to correct the issue. She had an operation at the age of 18 and one at the age of 20, and the experience left her determined to become a doctor to help others. She received her undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Puerto Rico, and she continued her medical training at the University of Michigan Medical School. She also completed a residency in pediatric nephrology at Georgetown University, following which she established her private practice as a pediatrician. Finding the emotional toll of the work challenging, Novello shifted her interest to public health and joined the US Public Health Service in 1979. She held several roles at NIH during the 1980s, including coordinating AIDS research; it was her work on pediatric AIDS that brought her to the attention of the White House. After her appointment to Surgeon General in 1990, she focused on the health of women, children, and minorities, working on underage drinking and smoking and promoting immunization and childhood injury prevention. Following her time as Surgeon General, she returned to the US Public Health Service until the late 1990s. In 1999, she was appointed Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, where she served until 2006. You can learn more about her work here and here.