Maass, Clara (1876-1901)
Item
Title
Maass, Clara (1876-1901)
Maass, Clara Louise (1876-1901)
Contributor
Raisch, Elly
birthday
1876-06-28
Birthplace
East Orange, NJ
Death Date
1901-08-24
Occupation
Nurse
Biographical Text
Clara Maass was a nurse best known for her death of yellow fever caused by voluntary medical experimentation. Maass was born to Hedwig and Robert Maass, German immigrants who struggled to make ends meet. As a teenager she worked for a local family as a mother’s helper and for the Network Orphan Asylum before enrolling in the Christina Trefz Training School for Nurses around 1893. She would continue on to work at Newark German Hospital, where she was promoted to head nurse in 1898, though later that year she began her volunteer career with the US Army as a contract nurse. While serving in Florida, Georgia, and Cuba, Maass was sent home on multiple occasions after contracting various diseases, yet she chose to return to Cuba on summons from Major General William Gorgas in 1900. There she volunteered as a test subject for the Yellow Fever Commission’s project to determine whether mosquitos were responsible for transmitting the disease. After several experiments and seven cases of yellow fever, Maass died while ill. Her efforts contributed to the development of the yellow fever vaccine.