Adelaide Dutcher ( fl. 1901) was an American

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

worker who was the first American to stress the social origins of

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

Life

When Adelaide Dutcher was a student in the

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospi ...

, she worked with

William Osler Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of phys ...

, head of the department of medicine, on a research project to study the environmental causes of tuberculosis. During this study, she interviewed 190 outpatients, both white and black, who lived in the slums of

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, and were so poor that they needed to work regardless of their health. "Dutcher identified the elemental problems: crowding, filth, darkness, lack of ventilation, appalling ignorance of the contagiousness of tuberculosis, and carelessness with infectious materials. She thought that education could correct many of the sanitary deficiencies of the poor" and published her conclusions in ''Where the Danger Lies in Tuberculosis'' that appeared in the ''Philadelphia Medical Journal'' in 1900. In the article she urged the formation of an educational campaign about the nature and prevention of tuberculosis and stressed that housing represented a primary source of infection. She reported that many patients stated they became ill only after moving into quarters known to have been occupied previously by victims of the disease. Nothing is known of her further life.Ogilvie & Harvey, pp. 791–92

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dutcher, Adelaide Johns Hopkins School of Medicine alumni 20th-century American physicians 20th-century American women physicians