A Phenomenal Physiologist
The wild and wonderful life of Ida Henrietta Hyde
At the age of 14, Ida Henrietta Hyde found herself in the precarious position of family breadwinner. Her parents were immigrants to America from Germany, and they’d lost everything, including their business, when their house burned down in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Slowly, Ida worked her way up from milliner’s apprentice to shop salesperson. One day at work, she stumbled upon an English copy of Alexander von Humboldt’s natural history masterpiece Views of Nature. Humboldt’s poetic, emotional essays overflowed with detailed descriptions of the natural world. His prose put the reader at the center of the action, in landscapes and lands most Western people had only dreamed of visiting. The book essentially invented a new genre of nature writing, a new way to think about nature and for humans to think about their relationship and interconnection to it. It was science writing that wasn’t stodgy and dry, but downright beautiful, inspirational. The book would change the course of Ida’s life. She now dreamed of becoming a scientist.
She began attending night school classes. A visit to the University of Illinois campus to see her brother showed her that women existed in academia. She decided to take the entrance exam herself, which she passed with flying colors. While her earnings had been funding her brother’s college, her savings only covered one year of school for her before she had to drop out. All of her educational aspirations were met with anguished protests from her family.
After a seven-year pause to earn enough funds, Ida’s education could begin in earnest. She left Chicago and enrolled at Cornell University in 1888. Summers were spent at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. By 1892, she’d graduated and become an official investigator at the lab. Her lectures covered the anatomy and embryology of jellyfish and other gelatinous sea creatures. Ida was awarded a scholarship to begin pursing an advanced science degree at Bryn Mawr College.
Her Woods Hole research on the neurophysiology of invertebrates settled a long-standing debate between zoologists Alexander Goette and Carl Claus. Dr. Goette took notice, and invited her to work in his lab at the University of Strasbourg. She was able to go and continue her research on jellyfish under Goette thanks to a fellowship from the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. To become a student at that institute would require petitioning the government and professors for approval. She became the first woman applicant to an advanced degree program in natural science or mathematics at a German university. Finding a very vocal resistance, she withdrew her application and entered the more receptive Heidelberg University. Still, she faced discrimination: she was barred from physiology lectures and labs because they were taught in the medical school, which didn’t allow women. She had to make do with what she could discern from the male students’ notes.
One day, Ida and her assistant were preparing to perform an experiment on an octopus to learn more about how it's salivary glands functioned. They anesthetized the creature and were about to begin the dissection when in burst Kaiser Wilhelm II and twenty members of the diplomatic corps. He was touring the facility in his role as president of the Prussian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Everyone stood in stunned silence.
“The Kaiser gazed sternly, disdainfully, and disapprovingly at the operation,” Ida later wrote in her account of the incident for the New York Evening Post. “Suddenly, a long, slimy, gnarled arm, in writing contortions, was waving in the air as if to strike us. With exclamations of horror, the spectators drew back. Even the Kaiser moved back a step.” The men exchanged glances, and looked expectantly at the Kaiser, believing he would remark upon the situation.
“Before the powerful arm could be pinned in place, the whole body swerved, and broke loose from the holders of the operating-table. At the same time, the arms began to swing and lash in twisting coils in all possible directions, accompanied by eruptions of inky jets that completely enveloped, for a moment, the desperate creature in a black misty cloud.”
The Kaiser was furious. He accused Ida of torturing a helpless creature.
“We may tolerate heartless research in American women, but our sympathetic German women would refrain from such cruel occupations!” the Kaiser growled. He even threatened to withdraw financial support.
Unflustered, Ida carefully explained that the creature’s movement was merely involuntary. She calmly picked up the octopus, put it back on the table, and re-secured it in place. She and her assistant then continued with the experiment.
When she was 39, Ida finally completed her Ph.D. She documented her experience in Germany in an outspoken essay in the Journal of the American Association of University Women titled: “Before Women Were Human Beings… Adventures of an American Fellow in German Universities of the '90's.”
Her doctorate complete, Ida was invited to become Investigator of Residence at the Zoological Station of Naples, an incredibly prestigious post. The zoology and marine biology research station remained afloat because of its table-subscription based system. For $500 a year, institutions could reserve a table to assign to a researcher of its choice. Ida held the Heidelberg University table. Her experience there was so incredible that she made sure other women could benefit from it.
"What a rare privilege it was to pursue studies in this highly endowed station! Through the investigators who came here from all quarters of the globe it offered a center for interchange that led to international understanding and enduring friendships,” Ida gushed. “Grateful for the generous spirit that pervaded all departments of the Station and the valuable benefits offered to men and women alike, I resolved upon returning to the United States to do all in my power to enable eligible women scientists to avail themselves of the laboratory's unexcelled opportunities."
She organized a fundraising group, the Naples Table Association for Promoting Scientific Research by Women, which established the American Women's Table at the Naples station. Thirty-six women went on to benefit from the fund.
A brief stint at the University of Bern, then a research Fellowship at Harvard followed. Ida finally settled down to accept a post as Associate Professor at the University of Kansas in 1899, and founded its Department of Physiology. She had to lobby the administrators to install women’s bathroom facilities in the science buildings. In the summers, she attended Rush Medical College in Chicago, and completed a medical degree at age 55.
In addition to her expertise in physiology of invertebrates, Ida was also passionate about lecturing on topics of hygiene and communicable diseases, and was an early proponent of public health education in schools. During the course of her career, she was the first woman elected into the American Society of Physiologists, and was appointed State Chairman of the Kansas Women's Committee on Health, Sanitation and National Defense. Her research was incredibly varied: the workings of nervous, circulatory, and respiratory systems in vertebrates and invertebrates, the effects of narcotics, caffeine, and alcohol on the body, the effects of music on blood pressure of athletes, musicians, and farmers. She also invented a restraint system for octopuses.
In 1921, it was announced that Ida had invented the first intracellular microelectrode, a device that could monitor the physiology of marine animals in seawater. Ida’s device was used to “deliver electrical or chemical stimuli to a cell and to record the electrical activity from an individual cell.” It could record electrical activity within the cell without disturbing the cell wall. This device revolutionized neurophysiology, especially the study of contractile nerve tissue. However, the invention of the electrode was attributed to Judith Graham and Ralph W. Gerard twenty years later; Gerard was nominated for a Nobel Prize for the invention.
After 22 years of teaching, Ida retired. But her commitment to furthering the careers of women in sciences continued. She established a scholarship at the University of Kansas for women pursuing science careers and endowed the $25,000 Ida H. Hyde International Fellowship with the American Association of University Women. She recognized how far she’d gotten in her study thanks to scholarships and fellowships. She knew other working-class women like her might be just as adept at science as she was, but lack the funds to pursue study.
Ida spent most of her retirement traveling throughout Europe, Egypt, and India — a well-deserved adventure after a life dedicated to science and of empowering women with the opportunities and funding to study it.
Further Reading:
“Ida Henrietta Hyde and the Microelectrode,” SciHi Blog, September 8, 2016, by Tabea Tietz.
“Happy Birthday to Ida H Hyde,” The Guardian, September 8, 2013, by Vanessa Heggie.
More about me:
Amazon Author page
Goodreads Author page
Pre-order my book: Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine, out March 2, 2021 from HarperCollins/Park Row Books.