Women’s Day – some achievers who made history

IN light of Women’s Day commemorated on Sunday, there are many great women of yesteryear who made some groundbreaking discoveries that remain relevant to this day.

The ZO delved into the history books to highlight some of these achievements.

ALSO READ: Women’s Day – what it means to you

June Almeida (1930-2007)
At the top of the list owing to the relevance of her discovery, Almeida discovered a number of viruses previously unknown, including a group of viruses that later became known as coronaviruses.
Almeida made this discovery in 1966, which is today relevant as Covid-19 belongs to the coronavirus group.
Almeida was the daughter of a Scottish bus driver and she left school at the age of 16.
She went on to become a pioneer in virus imaging, identification and diagnosis, and her skills in electron microscopy earned her an international reputation.
Almeida is said to have played a crucial role in adapting the electron microscope to clinical diagnostic virology work.

Marie Curie (1867-1934)
The first woman to win the Nobel Prize and still the only person to have won in two scientific fields, Marie Curie’s achievements include the development of the theory of radioactivity (a term coined by her).
A Polish and French-naturalised physicist, Curie also discovered the elements polonium and radium.
Under her direction, the world’s first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms using radioactive isotopes.
She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw, both of which remain major centres of medical research to this day.
During World War I, Curie developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.
Ironically, she died from Aplastic anemia, a rare condition linked to high levels of exposure to polonium and radium.

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
Famed for being the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale was also an English social reformer and statistician.
Known as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’, Nightingale served as manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War and, in 1860, laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas Hospital in London.
In recognition of her pioneering work in the field of nursing, newly qualified nurses must take the Nightingale Pledge, while the Florence Nightingale Medal is the highest international distinction a nurse can achieve.
Nightingale’s social reforms included improving healthcare for all sectors of British society, advocating better hunger relief in India, helping to abolish prostitution laws that were harsh for women, and expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce.

Eunice Newton Foote (1819-1888)
The first scientist known to have experimented on the warming effect of sunlight on different gases, this American scientist and women’s rights campaigner went on to theorise that changing the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would change the temperature.
This she wrote about in her paper ‘Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays’ in 1856.
In essence, Newton Foote, known as the mother of climate change, was the first scientist to make the connection between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and climate change.
While it is thought that women were allowed to present papers to the American Association for the Advancement of Science at the time, Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution delivered the paper that identified the research as her work.
‘An atmosphere of that gas would give to our earth a high temperature,’ was Newton Foote’s conclusion.

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