Sara Branham Matthews (1888-1962). Sara Branham’s mother and grandmother had graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, just as she did in 1907.  After teaching science in girls’ schools, Branham headed west to the University of Colorado and then for a Ph.D. and M.D. at the University of Chicago, where she taught some of the up-and-coming women scientists who would later work with her at the NIH. She is credited with the discovery and isolation of the virus that causes spinal meningitis, as reflected in an article about her titled “Georgia-Born Woman Doctor Uncovers Cure for the Dread Germ of Meningitis” in the Atlanta Constitution on March 6, 1939, which stated “She killed millions of killers!” 

Sara Branham's papers are held at the National Library of Medicine, History of Medicine Division. Dr. Branham, a United States Public Health Service scientist, became nationally known for her studies in the field of infectious diseases and is considered one of the “grand ladies of microbiology.” In 1928, when Branham was forty years old, she was appointed to the National Institute of Health to study pathogens and investigate causes and cures for influenza. Soon she was also investigating salmonella, shigella, and diphtheria toxins and became an expert on the chemotherapy of bacterial meningitis. She became principal bacteriologist in 1950 and served as Chief of the Section on Bacterial Toxins in the Division of Biological Standards until retirement in 1958.