March is Women in History Month and Women Who Shaped America's Health is the focus of this blog. There are so many amazing women who hold a place in history for their ingenuity and scientific accomplishments that it would take pages to begin to talk about all of them. Evolution Acupuncture, LLC is proud to cover 6 women who you may or may not remember as pioneers in medicine and the development of health as we know it today
Clara Barton: Founder of the American Red Cross, Clara played a major role in caring for soldiers during the Civil War and helped to search for missing soldiers, creating the Bureau of Records of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States. The American Association has gone on to be a vital player in providing disaster relief around the country.
Virginia Apgar, MD: Dr. Apgar is best known for developing a standardized system to evaluate the health of babies with The Apgar Score. The Apgar score assesses an infant's breathing, skin color, muscle tone, reflexes and pulse,. Dr. Apgar went on to become director of the division of congenital effects at what is now the March of Dimes.
Regina Benjamin, MD: Dr, Benjamin was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the 18th U.S. Surgeon General. Benjamin earned her medical degree from the University of Alabama and went on to become the first black woman under the age of 40 to become a member of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association.
Elizabeth Blackwell, MD: Currently, close to half of medical school graduates are women -- but Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to earn an M.D in 1849. She co-founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857 and authored significant books addressing women and medicine, including "Medicine As A Profession For Women" in 1860,
Rachel Carson: Scientist and writer Rachel Carson earned her master's degree in zoology from Johns Hopkins. She found a way to combine both her love for English and science, as well as her appreciation for nature, in her career, publishing numerous articles for various publications and gained notoriety for"Silent Spring" which detailed the havoc wreaked on our environment by modern pesticides. She and this article are credited with starting a movement toward the banning of DDT.
Patricia Goldman-Rakic, MD: Dr. Goldman-Rakic's contributions to the study of the brain have affected views on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in remarkable ways. She was the first researcher to fully chart the frontal lobe of the brain which affects personality, reasoning, planning, insight and more. In addition to her work with the frontal lobe, Dr. Goldman-Rakic went on to discover the significance of memory cells in the prefrontal cortex. In 1970 she found that the loss of dopamine in the prefrontal lobe led to the loss of memory. This study forever altered the face of neuro-psychiatry by demonstrating how symptoms of mental illness and psychoactive medications would affect patients. Dr. Goldman-Rakic's colleagues site her work on memory and behavior and drugs as a foundation for treating and understanding schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
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