Statues: The People They Salute

Colorado- Florence R. Sabin

Florence R. Sabin is the subject of one of the two statues donated by Colorado to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. A pioneer in medical science, Florence Sabin, in 1917, was the first woman to become a full professor at a medical college. Her contributions to healthcare include the implementation in 1947 of a city-wide x-ray and public education program that reduced the Denver tuberculosis rate by fifty percent.

Born in Central City, Colorado in 1871, Florence Sabin’s parents were George K. Sabin, a mining engineer, and Serena Sabin, a schoolteacher. Sadly, her mother died from puerperal fever (sepsis) in 1878. Soon after her mother’s death, Florence and her sister (Mary) moved in with their Uncle Albert to Chicago, before relocating to Vermont with their paternal grandparents.

She and her sister were fortunate to receive formal education. Florence earned her bachelor’s degree from Smith College in 1893. She taught high school mathematics in Denver for two years, followed by one year of zoology at Smith College as a means to finance her first year of graduate school.

In 1896, Sabin enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, gaining entry as one of fourteen women in her class. The school opened in 1893, and due to an early donor’s insistence that females be admitted the school was co-ed from the beginning.

While at Hopkins, Sabin’s observational skills and perseverance in the laboratory caught anatomist Franklin P. Mall’s attention. Impressed with Sabin’s ability, he inspired her to narrow her focus onto two projects well regarded by scientists. One area related to the brain stem and the other to the lymphatic system. Sabin graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1900.

Florence Sabin had a close relationship with Franklin Mall and his family. Franklin’s wife Mabel Mabel S. Glover had been one of three women in the first entering class at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, but before the end of her first year of medical school, she dropped out to marry Franklin Mall. Florence would one day write a biography of her mentor, Franklin.

In 1924 Sabin was elected the first woman president of the American Association of Anatomists and the first lifetime female member of the National Academy of Science. A year later she became head of the Department of Cellular Studies at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City.

In 1938, she retired to Colorado, but came out of retirement in 1944, to accept Colorado Governor John Vivian’s request to chair a subcommittee on health. This resulted in the “Sabin Health Laws,” which modernized the state’s public health system. In 1948 she became manager of health and charities for Denver, donating her salary to medical research. She retired again in 1951 and died on October 3, 1953.

These are some of Florence R. Savin’s words, when she received an achievement award in 1929…

“I hope my studies may be an encouragement to other women, especially to young women, to devote their lives to the larger interests of the mind. It matters little whether men or women have the more brains; all we women need to do to exert our proper influence is just to use all the brains we have.”

Diana Erbio is a freelance writer and author of “Coming to America: A Girl Struggles to Find her Way in a New World”. Read more in her series Statues: The People They Salute visit The Table of Contents and the Facebook Page.  (I’ll be adding to the Substack Table of Contents as I transfer the Blog Posts. Please subscribe to this Substack 😊🇺🇸🤓)