Wollstein, Martha (1868–1939)

views updated

Wollstein, Martha (1868–1939)

American pathologist and researcher . Born on November 21, 1868, in New York City; died on September 30, 1939, in New York City; daughter of Lewis Wollstein and Minna (Cohn) Wollstein; received medical degree from the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, 1889; never married; no children.

Born in New York City in 1868 to German-Jewish immigrants, Martha Wollstein began medical school at age 18 at the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. She finished the program in 1889, specializing in pathology. After serving a two-year internship at Babies Hospital in New York, Wollstein was hired as a pathologist there in 1892. Her early years were spent researching malaria, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever. In 1903, a pathological laboratory was opened at Babies Hospital, and Wollstein began experimental work on the bacteriology of infant diarrhea. Her published studies proved important in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. In recognition of her work, Simon Flexner, director of the Rockefeller Institute of New York, in 1906 offered her an assistant research position at the institute, where she would remain as a respected researcher, though without ever being granted membership status, for 15 years. In 1907, she began experimental research on polio.

Wollstein was keenly aware of the discrimination against women in medicine and their struggle for educational and professional opportunities. In 1908, she published one of the first histories in this area, with her article "The History of Women in Medicine" for the Woman's Medical Journal.

In 1910 Wollstein turned to researching pneumonia with the pathologist Samuel Meltzer, and by 1918 she was working on an anti-meningitis serum and researching the virus that causes mumps. In 1921, Wollstein returned full-time to Babies Hospital as a pediatric pathologist. Her research efforts there over the following 14 years included work on the pathology of influenzal meningitis, tuberculosis, jaundice, congenital defects, and leukemia. In 1928, the New York Academy of Medicine named Wollstein to be head of its pediatric section. Two years later, she became the first woman elected to the American Pediatric Society. Over the course of her career, Wollstein published 80 scientific papers.

The details of Wollstein's personal life are not well known. She never married, and few traces of close personal relationships have survived. After her retirement in 1935, she moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, but returned to New York when she became terminally ill. She died there, at age 60, in 1939 and was buried in Beth-El Cemetery in Brooklyn.