Louise Pearce

Education and training Louise Pearce received an A.B. degree in physiology and histology from Stanford University in 1907. She attended Boston University from 1907-1909, Pearce was recommended by Dr. Welch of Johns Hopkins as "a promising medical pathologist".

Map showing trypanosomiasis in the Belgian Congo, Dr. A. Yale Massey, 1907 By 1903, researchers had determined that sleeping sickness was caused by a trypanosome, a parasite that lived and multiplied extracellularly in the blood and tissue fluids of its human hosts. Researchers also knew that trypanosomes were transmitted by a species of tsetse fly. It had been suggested that preparations of arsenic might be useful in treating the disease, but an effective treatment had not been found.

At the Rockefeller Institute, Simon Flexner organized a group to test arsenical compounds. Building on the work of Paul Ehrlich in Germany, who had developed an arsenic-derived drug called Salvarsan for the treatment for syphilis, chemist Walter A. Jacobs and immunologist Michael Heidelberger synthesized 243 possible arsenicals, varying methyl groups, amides, and complex side chains.

The Rockefeller Institute sent Louise Pearce to Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo in 1920 to test tryparsamide, "trusting her vigorous personality to carry out an assignment none too easy for a woman physician and not without its dangers". There she worked with a local hospital and laboratory to design and carry out a drug testing protocol for human trials to establish tryparsamide's safety, effectiveness, and optimum dosage. Almost all early cases of the previously fatal disease were successfully treated, and most patients, even in the later stages of sleeping sickness, could be saved. Human trials also revealed that a side effect of other arsenical compounds, damage to the optic nerve and loss of vision, could occur with high or repeated doses of tryparsamide. Her co-workers were also honored for their contributions. appointed trustee, New York Infirmary for Women and Children, 1921 appointed associate member of the Rockefeller Institute, 1923 appointed to the General Advisory Council of the American Social Hygiene Association, 1925 appointed visiting professor of syphilology at Peiping Union Medical College, China, 1931 appointed to the National Research Council, 1931 named member of the board of the Corporation of the Philadelphia Women's Medical College, 1941 director of the Association of University Women, 1945 president of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1946-1951 president of the Corporation of the Philadelphia Women's Medical College, 1946; retired, 1951

Awards and honors

Awards Order of the Crown of Belgium (1920 honorary Doctor of Science, Sc. D., Bucknell University (1950) In the mid-1930s, after Baker retired, the three women lived together at Trevanna Farm, Skillman, New Jersey.