On one of Arkansas’ greatest scientific minds…

On one of Arkansas’ greatest scientific minds…

With many students around Arkansas graduating and heading out into the world of higher education, and with the threat of the Zika virus in the headlines, this month’s History Minute takes a look at one of Arkansas’ greatest scientific minds and the contributions she made to disease control.

The twentieth century opened a door for innovation in science and technology. Great minds steadily unlocked the mysteries of the world and made life better for countless people. One of those great minds was Arkansas research scientist Dr. Margaret Pittman, a woman whose research has helped save millions of lives.

Pittman was born in Washington Grove in Northwest Arkansas in 1901. Her father, Dr. James Pittman, was a respected physician in Washington County and introduced her to the world of science and the study of health. As a child, she and her brother and sister would often assist their father in his medical practice though that would not be permitted in any medical practice today.

In 1919, her father died after an attack of appendicitis. However, he had arranged for all of his children to attend Hendrix College in Conway. The family, however, still struggled as they completed their studies. Nevertheless, Pittman excelled and earned degrees in math and biology when she graduated in 1923. After graduation, she wanted to pursue a career in science, but her immediate options were limited. In the meantime, she went into education. She taught briefly at Galloway College in Searcy, which was a local girl's school, and quickly rose to the position of principal. When the opportunity to study science at the graduate level came along, she jumped at the chance.

She earned a masters degree in bacteriology, the scientific study of bacteria, from the University of Chicago in 1926. Showing great promise as a scientist, she won a fellowship to the prestigious Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, earning credit for her doctorate while working with some of the nation’s top researchers on questions surrounding bacteria and disease.

One question that captivated her research was the bacteria Hemophilus influenzae. The world suffered a terrifying outbreak of the flu in 1918 and 1919 that left 500,000 dead in the United States alone and tens of millions more worldwide. Working with Dr. Rufus Cole, she was able to help confirm the microorganism responsible for the flu, publishing an important paper on the subject in 1928. She also discovered that there were several strains of the bacteria, some of which caused meningitis, discoveries that paved the way for a life-saving vaccine years later. Pittman also studied bacterial pneumonia and earned her doctorate by 1929.

In 1936, she began work for the National Institutes of Health, continuing her studies of microorganisms and disease. In 1943, she began work on a whooping cough vaccine. The disease, also known as pertussis, infected thousands of children at the time and the most severe cases could cause pneumonia, seizures, brain damage, and even death.

“History Minute” By Dr.

Ken Bridges

Hundreds of children died from the disease each year.

With her NIH colleagues, Pittman developed a new technique to test the safety, viability, and potency of the vaccine.

By the 1950s, deaths from whooping cough all but disappeared.

While at the NIH, she worked with colleagues on vaccines for cholera and typhus, two diseases which had caused millions of deaths around the world. By the 1960s, her work led to the perfection of the cholera vaccine.

She had risen steadily from her roots in Washington County to becoming a school teacher, principal, and eventually acclaimed research biologist. She started working at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC, in 1936, in what she later called 'a golden opportunity.' At the time, she was one of only a handful of women working as research scientists for the federal government.

In addition to her work on vaccines, one of her most important breakthroughs emerged during World War II.

Wounded soldiers often showed signs of infections after blood plasma infusions, infections tied to the infusions. Pittman inspected the storage and processing procedures used and quickly devised a new strategy with other NIH scientists.

By 1957, the NIH appointed Pittman to head the Laboratory of Bacterial Products, a position she would hold for the next 14 years.

With this promotion, she became the first woman to head a national lab in the United States.

Pittman was in high demand at scientific conferences, and she traveled the world speaking about her research. In the 1960s, she was participating in studies of cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh and participating in World Health Organization projects to stem the tide of infectious diseases in the poorest parts of the world. She also researched a salmonella vaccine.

She retired in 1971 at the age of 70, respected around the world. However, still possessing an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, she went back to the lab as a guest researcher for the NIH, conducting studies and experiments without pay. She also continued to publish important articles in prestigious medical journals on different vaccines and research into different bacteria and diseases into the 1990s.

In her later years, she remembered the difficult times her family faced after the death of her father and how her mother had worked so hard to take care of them.

To honor her, in 1981, Pittman established the Virginia McCormick Pittman Distinguished Professorship at Hendrix College in Conway.

In 1986, Pittman was given an honorary fellowship from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her work on vaccines. Though she was never a medical doctor, her breakthroughs in the lab made the practice of medicine so much easier for modern physicians. By 1993, at the age of 92, she stepped away from the lab from the last time. The next year, the NIH established the Margaret Pittman Lectureship in her honor.

She died in Cheverley, Maryland, not far from Washington, DC, in 1995, on her ninety-fourth birthday.

Her work added important pieces to the scientific puzzles that had frustrated medicine for generations. While doctors and scientists had suspected that there were cures to these diseases, Pittman put the finishing touches on the vaccines for many ailments, to the point that where many of these diseases once left thousands dead in their wake are hardly given a second thought by the general public in the twenty-first century. That peace of mind for so many families is thanks in part to the genius and determination of one Arkansas scientist.

Dr. Kenneth Bridges teaches history and geography at South Arkansas Community College. He is co- editor of the “ South Arkansas Historical Journal” and author of numerous history articles and books.