After caring for disease-ridden soldiers as an army nurse, Clara Maass became intrigued with the yellow fever virus and finding a cure for it. To help scientists better understand the disease, Maass volunteered to get infected with it. Unfortunately, the second time she contracted the virus, it developed into a severe case that took her life.
Battling Diseases
Maass was born on June 28, 1876 in East Orange, New Jersey to a poor German immigrant family. She entered nursing school at Christina Trefz Training School of Nurses at the Newark German Hospital when she was 17 and graduated two years later. She started working at the hospital and was made head nurse just three years later.When the need for female nurses arose during the Spanish American War, she found her true calling. In April 1898, Maass signed up to be a contract nurse for the U.S. Army to care for wounded soldiers. She served with the Seventh U.S. Army Corps where she cared for wounded and ill soldiers in the southern United States and Cuba. She became skilled at treating diseases like malaria, typhoid, dysentery, dengue and yellow fever because more soldiers died from disease than battlefield wounds.
