DID YOU KNOW?
Dr. Florence Sabin
In 1981, Congress passed a resolution establishing National Women’s History Week, which coincided with International Women’s Day on March 8 honoring the achievements of women throughout the world. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month, creating Women’s History Month.
One of the most prominent women in Colorado’s history was Dr. Florence Sabin, a physician, researcher and teacher who modernized public-health laws. For her accomplishments, she was the first woman and first Coloradan honored in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol.
Born Nov. 9, 1871, in Central City, she lived in the mining camp until she was 4 and her family moved to Denver. Sabin was the first woman to graduate from Johns Hopkins Medical School, where as a student she designed a beeswax model of a newborn baby’s brainstem that was used for decades by medical-school students, along with her textbook “Atlas of the Midbrain and Medulla.” In 1917, she became the first female full professor at the medical school.
In 1924 Sabin was elected the first female president of the American Association of Anatomists and the first lifetime female member of the National Academy of Science.
In September 1925 she became head of the Department of Cellular Studies at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City. Her research focused on the lymphatic system, blood vessels and cells, and tuberculosis. She retired from the institute in 1938 and returned to Denver to live with her sister.
In 1944, she was asked by Gov. John Vivian to head the state health committee. She came out of retirement and drafted eight health bills after finding that Colorado had one of the nation’s highest infant mortality rates, the fifth-highest incidence of diphtheria and the third-highest rate of death from scarlet fever. What became known as the Sabin Health Laws were passed in 1947 and included requiring pasteurization of milk, better sewage-treatment plants and public-health education.
The same year the laws were passed, Sabin was asked by Denver Mayor Quigg Newton to become the city’s manager of health and charities. In that capacity, she began an X-ray program to diagnose tuberculosis that helped reduce Denver’s infection rate by half. She retired again in 1951.
Sabin died Oct. 3, 1953, six years before her statue was donated to Statuary Hall.
Source: “Colorado Almanac 2001” by Thomas J. Noel; Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives; The Architect of the Capitol (www.aoc.gov/aoc/index.cfm); Central City (www.centralcitycolorado.com/history.php); U.S. Census Bureau
REGIONAL NOTE
LAKEWOOD
Rundown on marathon slated
An open house about the Post-News Colorado Colfax Marathon will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Charles Whitlock Recreation Center, 1555 Dover St. Representatives of the marathon and city will answer questions about the May 21 event, which will stretch from Aurora to the foothills.
For information, call 303-987-7551.
