Katherine Rotan Drinker

Katherine Rotan Drinker (January 12, 1888 – March 15, 1956) was an American physician, educator, and occupational hygiene expert with the Harvard School of Public Health. She was co-editor of the Journal of Industrial Hygiene. She and her husband, Cecil Kent Drinker, studied the industrial poisoning of the Radium Girls at the United States Radium Corporation which advanced the field of occupational hygiene and improved worker health.

Early life and education She was born Katherine Rotan in Waco, Texas, on January 12, 1888, to Kate Rotan and Edward Rotan. She was one of nine children.

She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1910 and received her medical degree from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1914.

Career In 1916, Drinker joined the Harvard University School of Public Health. She lectured and published textbooks on medicine. While other occupational hygiene researchers focused on direct examination of the workplace and workers, the Drinkers conducted controlled laboratory tests of chemical exposure using animals and dissection and analysis of tissues.

The Drinkers were convinced that the employee's continuous exposure to radium was causing health problems. The company president, Arthur Roeder, disagreed and blamed the health problems on an infection outside of the factory. Roeder threatened to sue when he found out that they planned to publish the findings and the Drinkers acquiesced. A Harvard School of Public Health colleague, Alice Hamilton, learned that the United States Radium Corporation had submitted the Drinker's report to the New Jersey Department of Labor with the results altered to show the company in a better light. With this evidence that Roeder had acted in bad faith, the Drinkers ignored the threat of lawsuit and published the unaltered report.

Personal life In 1910, Drinker married Cecil Kent Drinker, They had a daughter, Anne Sandwith Zinsser, and a son, Cecil K. Drinker, Jr.