Matilda Moldenhauer Brooks

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Matilda Moldenhauer Brooks

Matilda Moldenhauer Brooks (born October 16, 1888 in Pittsburgh , † March 1981 in San Francisco ) was an American biologist who discovered an antidote to cyanide and carbon monoxide poisoning .

Life

Matilda Moldenhauer Brooks was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1888 as the daughter of Rudolph and Selma (Neuffer) Moldenhauer. She graduated from Philadelphia high school for girls and received her BA and MA degrees from the University of Pittsburgh . In 1920 she received her Ph.D. at Harvard University .

She first worked from 1917 to 1920 as a bacteriologist at the Research Institute of the National Dental Association in Cleveland . There she met her husband, the zoologist Sumner Cushing Brooks (1888-1948). They married in 1917. In 1920 Matilda Brooks began working as a biologist for the United States Public Health Service . In 1927 she went into physiological research at the University of California, Berkeley . She did not receive a salary there because her husband was a professor at the same university and at the time it was not allowed for married couples to take two paid positions in one department. However, she got reimbursed her expenses and paid assistants.

Matilda Brook's work has been supported by a number of well-known organizations. She received a Bache grant from the National Academy of Sciences , the Naples Research grant from the National Research Council, and grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Permanent Science Foundation. She was one of the few women to be a member of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole , Massachusetts. The Brooks couple spent the summer doing research in Woods Hole, while the rest of the time they lived and worked in California.

In 1932, while doing research on the redox reaction in living cells, Matilda Brooks discovered that the dye methylene blue could be used to treat cyanide and carbon monoxide poisoning. In the following year, a young man who had tried to kill himself with cyanide was saved for the first time in this way.

When her husband fell ill in 1934 and 1936, Matilda Brooks took his courses at the university. They later taught together for a time and went on a lecture tour through South America in 1944. They published scientific articles and a book called The Permeability of Living Cells (1941).

Her husband died in 1948 as a result of a heart attack. Matilda Brooks died in San Francisco in 1981 .

Publications (excerpt)

  • Comparative studies on respiration. In: The Journal of General Physiology , Laboratory of Plant Physiology, Harvard University, Cambridge 1919 ( online ; PDF file; 472 kB).
  • Studies on the permeability of living cells. IX. Does methylene blue itself penetrate? University of California press, Berkeley, Calif. 1927.
  • Studies on the permeability of living cells. XI. The penetration of thionine into Valonia. University of California press, Berkeley, Calif. 1930.
  • The effect of methylene blue on HCN and CO poisoning. In: American Journal of Physiology . 1932; 102: 145-147.
  • The effects of methylene blue and other oxidation-reduction indicators on experimental tumors. University of California press, Berkeley, Calif. 1934.
  • with Sumner Cushing Brooks: The permeability of living cells. Berlin-Zehlendorf, Borntraeger brothers, 1941.
  • Methylene blue, potassium cyanide and carbon monoxide as indicators for studying the oxidation-reduction potentials of developing marine eggs. The Biological Bulletin, The Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, and the University of California, Berkeley 1943 ( online ; PDF file; 1.61 MB).
  • Negative oxidation-reduction potentials resulting from the use of auxin in plants and tobacco smoke on animal cells. Springer, 1959, Protoplasma Volume 51, Number 4, 620-631.
  • Nicotine as a redox-reducing reagent producing abnormal growth in animal cells. Springer, 1961, Protoplasma Volume 53, Number 2, 212-219.

literature

  • Tiffany K. Wayne: American Women of Science Since 1900. Volume 1, ABC-Clio Inc, 2010, ISBN 978-1598841589 , p. 257.
  • Anne Commire, Deborah Klezmer: Brooks, Matilda M. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia, Yorkin Publications, 2000.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Anne Commire, Deborah Klezmer: Brooks, Matilda M. (1888-1981) Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages January 1, Gale, 2007, ISBN 978-0787675851 .
personal data
SURNAME Brooks, Matilda Moldenhauer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Pittsburgh
DATE OF DEATH March 1981
Place of death San Francisco