In 1896, Dr. Orianna McDaniel became the first female physician hired by the state of Minnesota to work in its new bacteriology lab.
Transcript
MN90 Intro: Welcome to MN90: Minnesota History in 90 Seconds.
Narrator: August 10, 1896 – The Minnesota Department of Health opened its new bacteriology lab. And one of the first hires was Dr. Orianna McDaniel.
She was a first of another kind too—the first female physician hired by the state. Which might explain why she, unlike her male peers, was only hired part-time. Her days were spent with some of the most deadly organisms on earth: small pox, diphtheria, typhoid and glanders, a bacteria often fatal to horses and humans. Two Minnesota men had already died from it—and soon Dr. McDaniel, who’d picked it up from the lab, was fighting for her life.
A newspaper dubbed her a “victim of science.” But miraculously, she not only pulled through, but also became head of the Department of Preventable Diseases—and live to ripe old age of 102.
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