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Sara Branham

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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. 

Margaret Pittman

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Margaret Pittman

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Margaret Pittman (1901-1995) came by medicine early, helping her country doctor father in his rural Arkansas practice.  She then attended the University of Chicago with money she had saved from teaching and received her Ph.D. in 1928.. She came to NIH in 1936, by way of the Rockefeller Institute and the New York State Department of Health, working with Dr. Sara Branham, who had taught her at the University of Chicago.  She is recognized for her work on an improved and standardized pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine. At the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research Pittman developed studies on strains of H. influenzae isolated from infected patients. In 1936, Pittman arrived at the National Institute of Health where her career path led her to become the first woman to hold the position of laboratory chief, heading the Laboratory of Bacterial Products, Division of Biologics and Standards, from 1957 to 1971. Pittman isolated the influenza strain responsible for most childhood meningitis, helped identify the cause of epidemic conjunctivitis, and made key observations that led to the development of a Salmonella vaccine. In 1970 Margaret Pittman was recognized with the Federal Women's Award, and she served as president of the Society of American Bacteriologists and of the Washington Academy of Sciences. Although Pittman “retired” in 1971, she kept working at NIH as a guest until 1993.  The Margaret Pittman Lectureship, created in 1994, honors Pittman for her exceptional research achievements at the National Institutes of Health. Find out more about her in this oral history.
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