May Edward Chinn did not plan on becoming a doctor. Originally she wanted to be a musician, but she changed from music to science after receiving encouragement from a professor at Columbia Teachers College. This fortuitous decision led to a distinguished career in medicine.

When May Chinn died in 1980, she was the recipient of honorary degrees from New York University and Columbia University. Her work in cancer research helped in the development of the Pap smear, a test for early detection of cervical cancer. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, one of the first female African-American physicians in New York City, and the first African-American woman to intern at Harlem Hospital.

Chinn's father escaped slavery from a Virginia plantation at the age of 11. Her mother was an indigenous American from the Chickahominy tribe who placed great value on education. She worked as a live-in housekeeper for the Tiffanys, the well-known family of artisans and jewelers, in their mansion on Long Island. She saved money from her meager wages to send May to a boarding school in New Jersey, an experience which ended when May contracted osteomyelitis of the jaw and returned to New York for surgery.

A Founder of Protein Crystallography

Scientific biographers do not, in general, find much correlation between good character and great science. There are a few exceptions. Historians have unanimously agreed, for example, that Charles Darwin was a particularly admirable, even lovable, figure: a collegial scientist, devoted father, faithful supporter of young colleagues, sincere, honest, and without personal enemies.

The Darwin of our age is certainly Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin. In the words of colleague Max Perutz (Nobelist for his solution of the hemoglobin molecule), she was "a great chemist, a saintly, gentle and tolerant lover of people, and a devoted protagonist of peace." In a short space it is impossible to discuss both the significance of her science and the scope of her tireless activity for world peace.

Helen Brooke Taussig is known as the founder of pediatric cardiology for her innovative work on "blue baby" syndrome

In 1944, Taussig, surgeon Alfred Blalock, and surgical technician Vivien Thomas developed an operation to correct the congenital heart defect that causes the syndrome. Since then, their operation has prolonged thousands of lives, and is considered a key step in the development of adult open heart surgery the following decade. Dr. Taussig also helped to avert a thalidomide birth defect crisis in the United States, testifying to the Food and Drug Administration on the terrible effects the drug had caused in Europe.

Helen Taussig was born 1898 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Frank W. Taussig, a well-known economist and professor at Harvard University, and Edith Guild, one of the first students at Radcliffe College. Her mother died when she was only 11, and her grandfather, a physician who had a strong interest in biology and zoology, may have influenced her decision to become a doctor.