Women who changed history and were wronged by books

Despite their important human role, these two women have a low status compared to the rest of the scholars.

Scientist Grace Eldring's photo

During the thirties of the last century, which coincided with the period of Kendrick and Eldring conducting their research, whooping cough represented a real challenge to humanity, in the United States of America, this disease kills annually more than 6000 people, 95% of them are children, surpassing many other diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria and scarlet fever from where the number of deaths. When infected with whooping cough, the patient shows some symptoms of a cold and his temperature rises slightly, and he also suffers from a dry cough that gradually increases in severity, followed by a long whoop similar to the rooster's cry.

In addition to all that, the patient suffers from severe fatigue and exhaustion that may lead to the emergence of other complications that are more dangerous to his life.

Since 1914, researchers have tried to combat whooping cough by various means, but their attempts failed, as the vaccine that was put on the market was of no use due to the inability of scientists to determine the characteristics of the bacteria that cause it.

A portrait of Scottish physician James Lind

In the early thirties, scientists Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldring took it upon themselves to put an end to the suffering of children with pertussis. During their childhood, Kendrick and Eldring both contracted whooping cough and recovered, and they both worked briefly in the field of education and were moved to witness the suffering of children with this disease.

Pearl Kendrick and Chris Eldring settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan. During the year 1932, this region witnessed a huge increase in cases of pertussis disease. Every day, the two scientists, who worked in one of the local laboratories of the Michigan Department of Health, moved between the homes of people with this disease to obtain samples of the bacteria that cause whooping cough by collecting droplets from the cough of sick children.

Scientist Lonnie Gordon's photo

Kendrick and Eldring worked daily for long hours and their research coincided with a difficult period in the history of the United States of America, when the country suffered from the impact of the Great Depression, which limited the budget granted to scientific research. For this reason, these two scientists had a very limited budget that did not entitle them to obtain lab mice.

A picture of the American doctor, Jonas Salk

To make up for this shortage, Kendrick and Eldring resorted to attracting a number of researchers, doctors and nurses to help them with the laboratory, and the people of the area, who turned out in great numbers, were invited to come and take their children to try the new vaccine against whooping cough. Kendrick and Eldring also took advantage of the visit of the first lady of the United States of America, Eleanor Roosevelt (Eleanor Roosevelt) to Grand Rapids, and they sent her an invitation to visit the laboratory and follow up the research. Thanks to this visit, Eleanor Roosevelt intervened to provide some financial support for the pertussis vaccine project.

Photograph of Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin

A portrait of the First Lady of the United States of America, Eleanor Roosevelt

In 1934, Kendrick and Eldring's research achieved amazing results in Grand Rapids. Of the 1592 children vaccinated against pertussis, only 3 contracted the disease, while the number of unvaccinated children reached 63 children. During the following three years, experiments confirmed the efficacy of this new vaccination against whooping cough, as the process of vaccinating a group of 5815 children demonstrated a decrease in the incidence of this disease by about 90 percent.

Kendrick and Eldring continued their research on this vaccine during the forties and assigned many distinguished scientists to help them, and Loney Gordon was among these scientists, as the latter contributed to the improvement of this vaccine and contributed greatly to the emergence of the triple vaccine DPT against diphtheria and cough Whooping and tetanus