Gladys Dick

{{short description|American microbiologist}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Gladys Rowena Henry Dick | native_name = | native_name_lang = | image = Gladys Rowena Henry Dick (1881-1963).jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = Dick in 1927<ref>{{cite web |url=https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_308456 |title=Gladys Rowena Henry Dick (1881-1963) Date unknown |accessdate=25 July 2013 |work= Smithsonian Institution Archives |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref> | birth_name = Gladys Rowena Henry | birth_date = {{Birth date|1881|12|18}} | birth_place = Pawnee City, Nebraska, US | death_date = {{Death date and age|1963|08|21|1881|12|18}} | death_place = Palo Alto, California, US | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | other_names = | residence = | citizenship = | fields = microbiology | workplaces = University of Chicago, Evanston Hospital, John R. McCormick Institute for Infectious Diseases, St. Luke's Hospital | alma_mater = University of Nebraska, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, University of Berlin | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = Scarlet Fever Vaccine | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | influences = | influenced = | awards = Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh {{small|(1933)}} | signature =  | signature_alt = | website =  | footnotes = | spouse = George F. Dick | children = }}

'''Gladys Rowena Henry Dick''' (December 18, 1881 – August 21, 1963) was an American physician who co-developed an antitoxin and vaccine for scarlet fever with her husband, George F. Dick.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ogilvie |first=Marilyn Bailey |author-link=Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie |author2=Joy Dorothy Harvey |author2-link=Joy Harvey |year=2000 |title=The biographical dictionary of women in science |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9780415920391}}</ref>

== Biography == Gladys Rowena Henry was born in Pawnee City, Nebraska in 1881 and earned her B.S. in zoology from the University of Nebraska in 1900.<ref name="EWHP">{{cite web |title=Gladys Dick (Henry) |work=EWHP Database |publisher=Evanston Public Library |accessdate=25 July 2013 |url=http://www.epl.org/ewhp/more.php?id=94&src=sig |archive-date=8 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140508224420/http://www.epl.org/ewhp/more.php?id=94&src=sig |url-status=dead }}</ref> She was a member of the Pi Beta Phi chapter at the University of Nebraska.<ref>''The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi'', v. 19, p. 107.</ref> Because her mother initially objected to Gladys attending medical school, she took graduate classes at Nebraska until 1903, then moved to Baltimore to attend Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Graduating in 1907 with her M.D., she then trained for a year at the University of Berlin. Dick's years at Johns Hopkins and Berlin "marked her introduction to biomedical research" and provided opportunities to study experimental cardiac surgery and blood chemistry with Harvey Cushing, W.G. MacCallum, and Milton Winternitz.<ref name="NAW">{{cite book |editor-last=Sicherman |editor-first=Barbara |editor2-first=Carol Hurd |editor2-last=Green |work=Notable American women: The modern period: A biographical dictionary |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1980 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CfGHM9KU7aEC |pages=191–192 |last=Rubin |first=Lewis P. |title=Dick, Gladys Rowena Henry|isbn=9780674627338 }}</ref>

Dick moved to Chicago in 1911 and contracted scarlet fever while working at Children's Memorial Hospital.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Encyclopedia of World Scientists|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=uPRB-OED1bcC&q=dick%2520gladys%2520chicago%2520hospital&pg=PA182|publisher = Infobase Publishing|date = 2007-01-01|isbn = 9781438118826|language = en|first = Elizabeth H.|last = Oakes|page = 182}}</ref> After recovering, she took a research position at the University of Chicago, where she studied kidney pathochemistry with H. Gideon Wells and the etiology of scarlet fever with her future husband, George F. Dick. After they married in 1914, Dick served as a pathologist at Evanston Hospital and later joined her husband at the John R. McCormick Institute for Infectious Diseases. She also served as a bacteriologist for the United States Public Health Service and worked at St. Luke's Hospital.<ref name="NAW" />

In October 1923, Dick and her husband successfully isolated hemolytic streptococcus "as the causative agent of scarlet fever," and later developed the '''Dick test''', a skin test which determined a person's susceptibility to the disease<ref name="EWHP" /> and produced "active immunization by larger doses of toxin and antitoxin for treatment, prevention, and diagnosis".<ref name="NAW" /> They patented their toxin and antitoxin production methods in 1924 and 1926, which produced criticism from the medical field. The Dicks argued that the patents maintained quality control<ref>{{cite journal |title=Dicks patent fever cure.; Chicago doctors act for public, not profit, statement says |journal=The New York Times |date=19 March 1927 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1927/03/19/archives/dicks-patent-fever-cure-chicago-doctors-act-for-public-not-profit.html |accessdate=25 July 2013}}</ref> and ultimately won a lawsuit against the Lederle Laboratories in 1930 for "patent infringement and improper toxin manufacture."<ref name="NAW" />

Though the Dicks' antitoxin and vaccine were superseded by penicillin in the 1940s, their work was recognized by a Charles Mickle Fellowship Award from the University of Toronto in 1926, and the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh in 1933. Through the 1940s and 1950s, Dick was active in polio research and became an advocate for adoption, founding the Cradle Society in Evanston, IL and serving on its board from 1918 until 1953.<ref name="NAW" /> She also devised the Dick Aseptic Nursery Technique which provided "strict sterilization and aseptic procedures" to prevent cross infection among infants.<ref name="EWHP" />

Dick died of stroke in Palo Alto, California on August 21, 1963.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Women in Medicine: An Encyclopedia|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QtZtkf35CF0C|publisher = ABC-CLIO|date = 2002-01-01|isbn = 9781576073926|language = en|first = Laura Lynn|last = Windsor|page = 60}}</ref>

==References== <references />

==Further reading== *{{cite book|last1=Shearer|first1=Benjamin F.|title=Notable women in the life sciences : a biographical dictionary|date=1996|publisher=Greenwood Press|location=Westport, Conn. [u.a.]|isbn=9780313293023|edition=1. publ.}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dick, Gladys}} Category:1881 births Category:1963 deaths Category:Scarlet fever Category:University of Nebraska–Lincoln alumni Category:American bacteriologists Category:American women microbiologists Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni Category:People from Pawnee City, Nebraska Category:20th-century American women scientists Category:20th-century American scientists Category:Biologists from Nebraska