In 1912 the science of laboratory medicine was just an infant. In fact, laboratory examinations were only beginning to gain acceptance as an adjunct to medical practice. But in South Bend, a group of 23 physicians, led by Dr. Stanley A. Clark, recognized the importance of this new discipline to their patients. They were frustrated by the time it took to send specimens to Indianapolis or Chicago and wait for reports, which could delay proper treatment for their patients. They joined together and each purchased two shares of stock in a new corporation that would bring laboratory services to the community. With the incorporation sum of $3,000, the South Bend Medical Laboratory was established and basic laboratory apparatus was purchased. Epworth Hospital (now Memorial) offered a basement room for the laboratory.
These physicians were the founding fathers of what was to become the South Bend Medical Foundation, but it was a woman, Dr. A.M. Petersen, who served as the first director of the fledgling facility.
Not only would she help set the standards for a new level of medical care in the community, but she would do so eight years before women would have the right to vote in this country.
Dr. Petersen arrived in South Bend on July 23, 1912, to take charge of the new medical laboratory at 604 North Main Street. The South Bend Tribune reported that she had arrived in the city from Battle Creek, Michigan where she had been engaged in similar work. For several years, she had worked as an assistant to Professor Ziet, head of the Pathology Department at Northwestern University. Some may have been skeptical of the difference the small lab would make, but within a month, it was reported that approximately 50 different doctors in South Bend, Elkhart, Niles and Goshen and vicinity were taking advantage of Dr. Petersen's work.
On August 24, 1912, the South Bend Tribune reported that "Dr. Petersen's experience has taken her to some of the best laboratories in the west, but she stated that for its size, the South Bend establishment has the most compact, high grade and complete equipment she has ever worked with. In fact, the laboratory is the only other one of consequence in the state besides the Board of Health in Indianapolis."
The article also detailed one of the most important features of the new laboratory -- a set of guinea pigs and rabbits. Along with her many other duties, much of Dr. Petersen's first month in South Bend was spent caring for this important asset and immunizing the animals, or "fitting the animals for testing."
After only one month in existence, the Tribune article reported that the medical laboratory was becoming a fixture in the community with successful examinations for malaria, tumor, typhoid fever, vaccine preparation, suspected poisoning and well water all being completed.
"Dr. Petersen reported that the extent of examinations which can be made here is practically unlimited and whenever the occasion arises where the desired apparatus is not at hand, the authorities have not been long in adding it," stated the Tribune. "That the South Bend Medical Laboratory has come to stay is more than assured."
| Looking Back: The 1930s... Medical Laboratory Loses One of Its Own During Meningitis Outbreak
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As winter of 1929 gave way to a new year, the city of South Bend was trapped in fear and panic as an outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis threatened the city.
City and public health officials and the South Bend Medical Laboratory (now the South Bend Medical Foundation) reacted swiftly to the crisis. The city and St. Joseph and Epworth Hospitals began plans for the construction of an isolation hospital for contagious diseases. While children throughout the city were tested for the disease by laboratory workers and technicians, the Board of Health and the city instituted ordinances barring all children under the age of 14 from public gathering places such as movie theaters.
Even though these orders were adopted after 13 confirmed cases and two deaths, local business, especially the downtown movie theaters, fought adamantly against the bans throughout the threatened epidemic.
It was while examining throat cultures of school children and others suspected of having the disease, the one young bacteriologist, Marjorie Ableson, contracted cerebro-spinal meningitis. For a week the young woman battled the disease. According to the South Bend Tribune, just when physicians were most hopeful for her recovery, complications from pneumonia developed. Ableson died two weeks after contracting meningitis on January 29, 1930, at the age of 34.
Described as "a virtual martyr to medical science" by the local newspaper, Ableson worked at the laboratory for eight years as a technician and bacteriologist. While the city and the local medical community mourned her death, no one was more affected than Dr. Alfred S. Giordano, medical director of the laboratory and a nationally recognized bacteriologist. During her brief years at the lab, Ableson worked closely with Dr. Giordano on research projects and even lived with his family.
Ironically, one of the research projects the pair worked on together focused on testing procedures for tuberculous meningitis. "The Relative Diagnostic Value of the Levinson Test and the Glucose Content in Cerebrospinal Fluid" was published in February 1928 by the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine. Another research project by the pair, "Brucella Abortus Infection in Man: A Serologic Survey," was published shortly before Ableson's death in January 1929 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
