Remembering Alice Hamilton American Pathologist* *Pathology is the medical specialty concerned with the causes of diseases. - Alice Hamilton was born in New York City on February 27, 1869. She grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and spent many summers with her family on Mackinac Island, Michigan.
- Inspired by a science high school teacher in Fort Wayne, Alice enrolled at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1892. After graduation she completed hospital internships in Minneapolis and Roxbury, Mass.
| Alice Hamilton, 1893 Hospital Intern |
- In 1897 she became a professor of pathology - the study of disease and its causes - at Northwestern University where she joined Hull House, a settlement community in Chicago founded by Jane Addams. She would live at Hull House from 1897-1919, becoming Jane Adams' personal physician.
- Hamilton witnessed the occupational injuries and illnesses of workers in Chicago. She documented the effect that exposure to carbon monoxide and lead had on workers' health. She worked to identify the causes of typhoid and tuberculosis and she publicized the high mortality rates of workers exposed to industrial poisons.
- In 1919 Hamilton accepted the position of assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, making her the first woman appointed to the Harvard faculty in any field. "Yes, I am the first woman on the Harvard faculty, " she said, "but not the first one who should have been appointed."
- During World War 1, at the behest of the U.S. Army, she investigated a mysterious ailment among munitions workers in New Jersey. She identified the chemical exposure and recommended protective clothing and the washing of clothes at the end of shifts.
- She authored studies on carbon monoxide poisoning among steelworkers, mercury poisoning of hatters and hand injuries experienced by workers using jackhammers. A passionate defender of workers' health, she criticized the ignorance and bad faith of management - and her own colleagues - regarding the suffering and disease of workers.
- Besides crusading for public health, she advocated for women's suffrage, birth control, civil liberties, workers' compensation and peace. In 1925 Alice wrote the textbook Industrial Poisons in the United States which established her as one of the world's leading authorities on the subject.
- She retired from Harvard in 1935 and, in 1943, published her autobiography, Exploring the Dangerous Trades.
- She died on Sept. 22, 1970 in Hadlyme, Connecticut at the age of 101. Three months after her death the U.S. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).
[Thanks to on-line sources, which were quoted extensively: Wikipedia, Linn's Stamp News, 1995, OCAW Reporter, Nov.-Dec,, 1992, print copy.] |
