AMPLIFY: Dr. Ruby Hirose

Hello sweet HerStry babes! How are we doing? Holding up? Holed in? I hope you are all protecting yourselves the best you can and taking care of your heads and hearts. As you may have noticed, there was no March Amplify and we’re picking up in April. If you’re a frequent reader of Amplify, you know I’m no stranger to skipping a month here and there when it comes to the column, but usually I do this with a great amount of guilt. This time, though, I offered myself a bit of grace because we are all, collectively, living through a pandemic. So today, in addition to learning about Dr. Ruby Sakae Hirose, I want to remind each reader that you should always offer yourself grace. Like so many have said on the internet, it’s okay if you’re not writing your next big novel or developing a business right now. It’s okay if you feel overwhelmed. Hell, it’s okay if you love how much alone time you have now. During a globally traumatic event, if all you’re doing is not causing harm, you’re doing enough.

Because vaccines are on the forefront of my mind, this month we’re talking about Dr. Ruby Hirose. Dr. Hirose is a Japanese American, born in Kent, Washington on August 30th, 1904 (4). Hirose’s research of antitoxins and serums while with the William Merrill Company helped pave the way for the eventual development of the polio vaccine (5).

Hirose is Nisei, a term to describe second generation Japanese Americans, the children of the Issei. The Issei are the first generation to come to the United States from Japan, and the Nissei are their children, born on US soil (4). Ruby’s parents, Shiusaka and Tome, were Issei. The family was never considered well-off, and had a considerable amount of misfortune and tragedy in their lives. Before Hirose was thirty, two of her sisters died (4). One died of tuberculosis, and the other’s cause of death was not disclosed. Hirose’s mother, Tome, died in 1934, of tuberculosis as well. In an interview with Stanford University for their survey of race-relations, Hirose shares that her parents moved to the US after her father’s business failed and they didn’t want family and friends to see the deep poverty they had fallen into (3).

In the same interview, Hirose discusses her parents’ poor judgement in regards to a purchase of property (3, 5). She says, “I can’t see why he bought those pieces of land. Why it is hilly and covered with stumps and it would be an awful task to put the ground in shape to cultivate” (3). In this same interview, given when she was just nineteen, Hirose talks about the struggles of having family with tuberculosis, her preference to being around white people instead of Japanese people, her disdain for interracial marriages, and her dislike of eating in front of or around other people (3). Now, we can’t all be held accountable for the weird stuff we said when we were nineteen, and I don’t have the word count or the knowledge to unpack alllllll of that.

Hirose was the first Nisei to graduate from Auburn High School in 1922 (4). She then attended undergrad and graduate school at the University of Washington, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in pharmacology by 1928 (4). After leaving the University of Washington, Hirose continued her education at the University of Cincinnati, earning her PhD in biochemistry in 1932. While she was at the University of Cincinnati, “A Pharmaceutical Study of Hydrastis Canadensis” was published in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association (1). It was a study on goldenseal, a plant that Lewis and Clark documented with a long history uses, both medicinal and otherwise.

In 1938, Hirose was hired by the William S. Merrill Chemical Company (5). It was with the Merrill Chemical Company that Hirose researched serums and antitoxins - research that was crucial to the development of the polio vaccine years later. Hirose stands out in her field because of her impressive work, but also because she excelled in a male-dominated field. In a meeting of the American Chemical Society, Hirose was just one of 10 women out of 300 individuals from the Merrill Chemical Company (1, 4) that attended that meeting.

By the start of World War II, Hirose was still living in Ohio and associated with multiple universities in the region, including the Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology, University of Cincinnati, the Univ. of Cincinnati department of science, and the University of Indiana. She also worked as a bacteriologist at local veteran’s hospitals (5). When Roosevelt issued executive order 9066 in 1942, Hirose’s association with these institutions and her lack of proximity to large bodies of water (you know, people in Ohio can’t communicate with Japanese spy submarines..?) protected her from being put in Japanese internment camps, but unfortunately her father, sister, and brother were all living on the west coast and forced into the camps (5).

Hirose continued her work in and around Cincinnati until 1958, when she moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania to work at the Lebanon Veteran’s Administration Hospital as a bacteriologist (5). Shortly after her move, Ruby Hirose died of acute myeloid leukemia on October 7, 1930 (4).

Even though life right now is scary and weird, reading about the incredible scientists, researchers, and doctors of the past gives me hope that we’re close to the kind of breakthrough people will talk about for hundreds of years to come. This is usually the time I try to make a dark joke about the end of the world, but I’m guessing we’ve all probably read enough of that for now.

Dearest HerStry readers, I’d love to hear your feedback. Suggestions, criticisms, questions, corrections—I want it all! I’m trying to help educate the HerStry community on the badass women of our past, but I still have a lot to learn myself. If you’re interested in all of the work that Ruby Hirose published over the years, her Wikipedia page (linked below in sources) is very strong and links out to a lot of her research. There are titles of additional studies published in the timeline below as well. Thanks so much for reading, and don’t forget to take care of yourselves.

Dr. Ruby Hirose’s Timeline

1904 - Born on August 30th to Shiusaka and Tome Hirose in Kent, Washington (4)

1922 - First Nisei to graduate from Auburn High School in Auburn, WA (4)

1925 - Sister Fumiko dies from tuberculosis (4)

1926 - Graduates from University of Washington with her bachelor’s degree in pharmacology (4)

1928 - Graduates from University of Washington with her master’s degree in pharmacology,  Sister Tomo dies (4)

1930 - “A Pharmaceutical Study of Hydrastis Canadensis,” a study about a plant called goldenseal that was collected by Lewis & Clark, was published in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association (1)

1932 - Graduates from University of Cincinnati with PhD in biochemistry (4)

1934 - Mother dies from tuberculosis (4)

1938 - hired by the William S. Merrill Chemical Company (5)

1940 - Hirose attends the American Chemical Society meeting in Cincinnati, where she is just one of ten women, in a group of 300 members (1,4)

1942 - Father, brother, and sister are all sent to internment camps on the West Coast, because of Roosevelt’s executive order 9066 (5)

1946 - With associates, Hirose publishes “Diffusion of sulfonamides from emulsified ointment bases” (5)

1958 - Moves to Lebanon, Pennsylvania to work as a bacteriologist at the Lebanon Veterans Administration Hospital (5)

1960 - Dies of acute myeloid leukemia in West Reading, PA on October 7 (4)

 Sources

1- https://www.energy.gov/articles/five-fast-facts-about-dr-ruby-hirose

2 - https://winsatnyu.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/ruby-hirose-1904-1960/

3 - http://collections.stanford.edu/pdf/10100000000027_0014.pdf

4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Hirose

5 - https://heychemistry.com/2017/03/13/profile-ruby-s-hirose/

Ashlee Christinsen lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is an Illinois native - grew up in the Chicago suburbs, went to school at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL, and lived in the city of Chicago up until 2015. In June 2015, she packed up with her partner and moved to the city she has absolutely fallen in love with, Pittsburgh! When she's not at work, she can typically be found in yoga class, working on the next edition of AMPLIFY, cuddling with George the cat, or enjoying trying to figure out what next home improvement task she is going to take on. Follow her nonsense on Twitter: @trashleeinpgh.