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20 Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com January 25-February 22, 2021 PROFILES IN NURSING by Jessica Dzubak, RN, MSN M ore than a century ago, Clara Maass, the first nurse to have an American medical center named after her, gave her life in the battle against a terrifying infectious disease: yellow fever. Before there were research ethics, human subject policies or review boards, there was Clara Maass. The Most Feared Diseases Every day, nurses make great sacrifices and practice in unprecedented conditions to care for patients with dangerous diseases, both known and unknown. The resilience and strength we see in nurses today confronting the COVID-19 pandemic echoes the heroic example of historical nurses like Clara Maass, who died in the line of duty 120 years ago. Born in East Orange, N.J., the oldest of 10 siblings, Maass displayed leadership characteristics from the very beginning of her nursing career. After graduating from Newark German Hospital's Christina Trefz Training School of Nursing in 1895, she quickly rose to the position of head nurse for the hospital. Much of her short life was spent caring for the sick, a choice she made at every opportunity. She volunteered to serve as a contract nurse in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War in 1898, practicing in both the con- tinental U.S. and Cuba. After the war ended, Maass wrote to the Army surgeon general, asking to be sent across the world to provide care where it was needed most. Her service took her to the Philippines, where she was assigned to many patients ailed by highly infectious conditions. Her resolve never weakened, even in the face of her era's most feared diseases, including typhoid fever, malaria, smallpox and yellow fever. Human Trials Maass's ultimate contribution to nursing and medical sci- ence came in 1901. During her tenure as a contract nurse, many of those Maass treated contracted yellow fever, a highly infectious and lethal disease common in tropi- cal areas. Patients who survived a severe yel- low fever infection became immune to the disease, but with case fatality rates of up to 60 percent, the odds of survival were poor. At the turn of the last century, the fact that yellow fever was spread by mosquitos was still a theory. A human study con- ducted in Cuba by Johns Hopkins physician Jesse Lazear, M.D., produced inconclusive results until Lazear himself died after being bitten by an infected mosquito. In late 1900, Lazear's supervisor, Maj. Walter Reed, M.D., traveled to Cuba to oversee the next phase of the study. By early 1901, the focus of Reed's experiments had shifted from confirming the link between mosquitos and yellow fever to inoculating patients in hopes of immunizing them against the disease. Reed's staff began recruiting additional volunteers, including American servicemen and a number of Spanish immigrants. The Seventh Bite Clara Maass had arrived in Cuba shortly before Reed, answering a call for nurse volunteers. Because of her previ- ous work with yellow fever victims, she soon became involved with the experimental work, which was conducted at Las Animas Hospital in Havana. In May, she volunteered for Reed's experiments, allow- ing herself to be bitten by mosquitos infected with yellow fever. Each of the volunteers was paid $100 in gold — a lot of money back then — but she didn't do it for financial gain. Clara Maas (1859–1931) and Yellow Fever She gave her life in pursuit of a cure