Anna Wessels Williams, MD — research (bacteriology)
Courtesy Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University
Dr. Anna Wessels Williams (1863–1954) worked at the first municipal diagnostic laboratory in the United States, at the New York City Department of Health. She isolated a strain of diphtheria that was instrumental in the development of an antitoxin for the disease. She was a firm believer in the collaborative nature of laboratory science, and helped build some of the more successful teams of bacteriologists, which included many women, working in the country at the time.
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For more information about diptheria, visit MedlinePlus.
