Clara Maass
Encyclopedia
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
.
Early life
Clara Maass was born in East Orange, New JerseyEast Orange, New Jersey
East Orange is a city in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census the city's population 64,270, making it the state's 20th largest municipality, having dropped 5,554 residents from its population of 69,824 in the 2000 Census, when it was the state's 14th most...
to German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
immigrants Hedwig and Robert Maass. She was the oldest of 10 children in a devout Lutheran family.
In 1895 she became one of the first graduates of Newark German Hospital's Christina Trefz Training School for Nurses. By 1898, she had been promoted to head nurse at Newark German Hospital, where she was known for her hard work and dedication to her profession.
Army service
In April 1898, during the Spanish-American WarSpanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
, Maass volunteered as a contract nurse for the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
(the Army Nurse Corps
Army Medical Department (United States)
The Army Medical Department of the U.S. Army – known as the AMEDD – comprises the Army's six medical Special Branches of officers and medical enlisted soldiers. It was established as the "Army Hospital" in July 1775 to coordinate the medical care required by the Continental Army during the...
did not yet exist). She served with the Seventh U. S. Army Corps from October 1, 1898 to February 5, 1899 in Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Florida in terms of both population and land area, and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. It is the county seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968...
, Savannah, Georgia
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...
, and Santiago, Cuba. She was discharged in 1899, but volunteered again to serve with the Eighth U.S. Army Corps in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
from November 1899 to mid-1900.
During her service with the military, she saw few battle injuries. Instead, most of her nursing duties came in providing medical aid to soldiers suffering from infectious diseases like typhoid
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
, malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, dengue
Dengue fever
Dengue fever , also known as breakbone fever, is an infectious tropical disease caused by the dengue virus. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles...
and yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
. She contracted dengue in Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
and was sent home.
Yellow fever studies
Shortly after finishing her second assignment with the army, Maass returned to Cuba in October 1900 after being summoned by William GorgasWilliam C. Gorgas
William Crawford Gorgas KCMG was a United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the U.S. Army...
, who was working with the U.S. Army's Yellow Fever Commission. The commission, headed by Major Walter Reed
Walter Reed
Major Walter Reed, M.D., was a U.S. Army physician who in 1900 led the team that postulated and confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by a particular mosquito species, rather than by direct contact...
, was established during the post-war occupation of Cuba in order to investigate yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, which was endemic
Endemic (epidemiology)
In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic in the UK, but malaria is not...
in Cuba. One of the commission's goals was to determine how the disease was spread: by mosquito
Mosquito
Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...
bites or by contact with contaminated objects
Fomite
A fomite is any inanimate object or substance capable of carrying infectious organisms and hence transferring them from one individual to another. A fomite can be anything...
.
The commission recruited human subjects because they did not know of any animals that could contract yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
. In the first recorded instance of informed consent
Informed consent
Informed consent is a phrase often used in law to indicate that the consent a person gives meets certain minimum standards. As a literal matter, in the absence of fraud, it is redundant. An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the...
in human experiments, volunteers were told that participation in the studies might cause their deaths. As an incentive, volunteers were paid US$100, which was a large amount at the time, with an additional $100 if the volunteer became ill.
In March 1901, Maass volunteered to be bitten by a Culex fasciata mosquito (now called Aedes aegypti
Aedes aegypti
The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti is a mosquito that can spread the dengue fever, Chikungunya and yellow fever viruses, and other diseases. The mosquito can be recognized by white markings on legs and a marking in the form of a lyre on the thorax...
) that had been allowed to feed on yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
patients. She contracted a mild case of the disease from which she quickly recovered. By this time, the researchers were certain that mosquitoes were the route of transmission, but lacked the scientific evidence to prove it because some volunteers who were bitten remained healthy. Maass continued to volunteer for experiments.
Death
On August 14, 1901, Maass allowed herself to be bitten by infected mosquitoes for the second time. The researchers were hoping to show that her earlier case of yellow fever was sufficient to immunize her against the disease. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Maass once again became ill with yellow fever on August 18 and died on August 24. Her death roused public sentiment and put an end to yellow fever experiments on humans.Maass was buried in Colon Cemetery in Havana with military honors. Her body was moved to Fairmount Cemetery, Newark
Fairmount Cemetery, Newark
thumb|190px|The Krueger Mausoleumthumb|190px|The Setters' MonumentFairmount Cemetery is a Victorian cemetery in the West Ward of Newark, New Jersey, in the neighborhood of Fairmount. It opened in 1855, shortly after the Newark City Council banned burials in the central city due to fears that...
, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, on February 20, 1902.
Legacy
- In 1951, the 50th anniversary of her death, Cuba issued a postage stampPostage stampA postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
in her honor. - On June 19, 1952, Newark German Hospital (which had since moved to Belleville, New JerseyBelleville, New JerseyBelleville is a Township in Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 35,926.-History:...
) was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital, and it is now known as Clara Maass Medical CenterClara Maass Medical CenterClara Maass Medical Center is a hospital in Belleville, New Jersey that is part of the Barnabas Health. It was founded in 1868 as the Newark German Hospital, and was renamed in 1952 in honor of Clara Maass, a former nurse who trained there at the hospital's Christina Trefz Training School for...
. - In 1976, the 100th anniversary of her birth, Maass was honored with a 13¢Cent (currency)In many national currencies, the cent is a monetary unit that equals 1⁄100 of the basic monetary unit. Etymologically, the word cent derives from the Latin word "centum" meaning hundred. Cent also refers to a coin which is worth one cent....
United States commemorative stamp. - Also in 1976, the American Nurses AssociationAmerican Nurses AssociationThe American Nurses Association is a professional organization to advance and protect the profession of nursing. It started in 1896 as the Nurses Associated Alumnae and was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911...
inducted her into its Nursing Hall of Fame. - The Calendar of SaintsCalendar of Saints (Lutheran)The Lutheran Calendar of Saints is a listing which details the primary annual festivals and events that are celebrated liturgically by some Lutheran Churches in the United States. The calendars of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod are from the...
of the Lutheran Church honors Maass and British nurse Florence NightingaleFlorence NightingaleFlorence Nightingale OM, RRC was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night...
on August 13 as a "Renewer of Society."
External links
- American Nurses Association Hall of Fame retrieved 2010-04-26
- Clara Maass entry at Find A GraveFind A GraveFind a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...
with photos of her headstone, both before and after vandalism.