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Born in Winchester, Massachusetts, Louise Pearce graduated from Stanford University and received her degree of Doctor of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University in 1912. In 1913, she joined the staff of the Rockefeller Institute and became the first woman to be appointed as assistant to Dr. Simon Flexner, the first director of the Institute. There, with Dr. Wade Hampton Brown, she developed tryparsamide, a drug that proved effective in curing “sleeping sickness” (trypanosomiasis). It was also with Dr. Brown that Dr. Pearce discovered the Brown-Pearce carcinoma in rabbits, a transplantable tumor. Her investigations on constitutional and environmental factors in resistance and susceptibility to disease are classics in their fields.
In 1931 and 1932, Dr. Pearce was Visiting Professor of Medicine at Peiping Union Medical College in China. In 1941, she became a member of the Board of Corporators of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and in 1946, its President, serving until 1951.
In 1952, she received the honorary degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences from the College. Thirty-four years after her work on the sleeping sickness cure, she was named an Officer of the Royal Order of the Lion by King Baudouin of Belgium and was awarded the King Leopold II Prize of $10,000.