In the medical world, many say that a newborn baby is first seen through the eyes of Dr. Virginia Apgar. In the early 1950s, Apgar came up with a test that could give information to a physician about the infant’s health just minutes after birth. Today, her Apgar score has saved thousands of lives, as it is used in most hospitals across the world.
Apgar was born on June 7, 1909, in New Jersey to insurance executive Charles Apgar and his wife, Helen. Her father was an amateur inventor and astronomer, which must have inspired Apgar with a passion for science and math. Perhaps because she lost her eldest brother to tuberculosis when he was only 5, while her other brother suffered from a chronic childhood illness, she grew fascinated with medicine.
