How
women in Patricia’s time period, field of study and Culture used Technology[1]
There were many women inventors in
Patricia Bath’s time period. For example, Virginia Apagar invented a very
useful tool for women during her time. She was born in 1909 and died in 1974
and was a professor of anesthesiology at the New York Columbia-Presbyterian
Medical Center. Her invention was the Apgar scale which she created in 1953.
This is a simple, standardized scale that was used to check the physical status
of a baby right after being born. It checks the heart rate, respiration, muscle
tone, reflex response, and color and is usually done after one minute of being
born and then again after five minutes of being born. While these tests are
being done, the doctor is quickly alerted if the baby needs help. I’m sure this
invention has saved many babies since being created and continues to do so
today. Another female inventor of that time was Gertrude Elion. She was born
January 23, 1918 and died February 21, 1999. She was a Nobel Prize winning
biochemist who invented many drugs. Some of these drugs included 6-thioguanine
which fights leukemia, Imuran, Zovirax, and many others. She was named on 45
patents for drugs and since these drugs were invented, has saved thousands of
people.
I also found that there were many
African American women who invented technologies. One woman named Sarah Goode
invented a folding cabinet bed in 1885. This cabinet folded up against the
wall, but when folded, it was used as a desk with compartments. She was a
business woman who owned a furniture store in Chicago and invented this bed for
people living in small apartments. Her patent was the first one obtained by an
African-American woman inventor (Zoom Inventors and Inventions). Another
African-American woman was Madame C.J. Walker. She was an inventor, business
woman, and self-made millionaire. She created many beauty and hair care
products. She started her cosmetics business in 1905 and the first product she
released was a scalp treatment that used petrolatum and sulphur. Her products
became very popular so she started selling door-to-door. Because of its
popularity, she added many new products to her line and soon had saleswomen who
sold her products door-to-door and to beauty salons and called them “Walker
Agents” (Zoom Inventors and Inventions).
There were many women who used
technology in Patricia Bath’s field of medicine. One woman named Ida Henrietta
Hyde who lived from 1857 to 1945 was an American physiologist who invented the
microelectrode in the 1930s. This device electrically stimulates a living cell
and records the electrical activity within that cell (Zoom Inventors and
Inventions). Ida was the first woman to graduate from the University of
Heidelberg, to do research at the Harvard Medical School and to be elected to
the American Physiological Society (Zoom Inventors and Inventions). Another
woman named Rosalyn S. Yalow co-invented the radioimmunoassay in 1959. What
this did was chemically analyze human blood and tissue. It is used to diagnose
illnesses, such as diabetes. This invention revolutionalized diagnoses because
it uses only a tiny sample of blood or tissue and is inexpensive and simple to
use. It can detect drug use, high blood pressure, infertility, and many others.
In 1977, she won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for inventing this.
[1] http://willettt.wordpress.com/culture-site/how-women-in-patricias-time-period-field-of-study-and-culture-used-technology/
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