Hamilton, Alice

Hamilton, Alice, 1869–1970, American toxicologist, physician, and educator, b. New York City, M.D. Univ. of Michigan, 1893; she continued her studies in Germany. A pioneer in industrial diseases and hygiene, she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1919 and became emeritus professor of industrial medicine in 1935. Her services as an outstanding authority on industrial conditions, ailments, and poisons were eagerly sought by political and government agencies. She worked with the state of Illinois, the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, and the health committee of the League of Nations. Her publications include Industrial Poisoning in the United States (1925), Industrial Toxicology (1934), and Exploring the Dangerous Trades, an autobiography (1943).

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Hamilton, Alice (1869–1970) physician/social reformer; born in Fort Wayne, Ind. (sister of Edith Hamilton). A pioneer in industrial toxicology and a nonconformist who valued personal liberty above all else, she became a leading American authority on lead poisoning and one of the handful of worldwide specialists on industrial diseases by 1916. Her reports on lead—and later on rubber and munitions—led to improved safety standards nationwide. The product of an intellectually stimulating if socially protected environment, she chose medicine as the only way to be both independent and socially useful. It was during her more than a decade as a resident of Chicago's famous settlement house, Hull House, and her ensuing friendship with reformer Jane Addams that she coupled scientific research with her latent reformist zeal. Focusing on industrial diseases, she became a special investigator for the United States Bureau of Labor (1911), Harvard University's first professor of public health (1925), and she eventually published hundreds of studies on industrial toxicology, several books, and an autobiography.