Mae Salona Holmes, MD & the Belmont Isolation Hospital: She Could Do Everything

Michael Urbanowski, PhD

Dr. may salona holmes was born in lee, massachusetts around 1870. With a trace of humor, she called herself a “hill town Yankee”. She studied at Smith College and then at the Blackwell Sisters’ Woman’s Medical College of the New York City Infirmary, where she became a member of an early generation of female physicians in the United States. In 1895 she moved to Worcester Massachusetts for an internship at Memorial Hospital. Her passion was for the treatment of infectious diseases. One year later, at the remarkable age of 25, Dr. Holmes became the superintendent at a new hospital on Belmont Hill. For the next 44 years, she was one of the most influential figures in public health and infectious disease medicine in the City. Unfortunately, her name is not well known, possibly because she led a hospital long since demolished, or maybe because she was a woman working in a field that failed to credit her leadership and genius. Still, her story is both captivating and inspiring and deserves to be told.

Approximately half of all US deaths in 1900 were attributed to an infectious cause (compared with approximately 12% in 2020 and 2% in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic). In Worcester, pneumonia and tuberculosis reigned “captain” of these causes, but diphtheria, cholera, typhoid fever and even malaria were common. Many cities began to focus on urban health. The Worcester Board of Health received support to build an isolation hospital on Belmont Hill (today, the site of the Worcester Technical High School). In 1896, endorsed by her Memorial Hospital mentors, Dr. Holmes was hired as superintendent and resident physician of the Belmont Isolation Hospital.

Under Dr. Holmes’ leadership, the hospital grew from three wooden lodges designed for incineration in case of contamination to nine (ironically) fireproofed treatment buildings by her retirement in 1941. Dr. Holmes was no mere passenger for these changes; rather, she was a creative and passionate advocate for the hospital. In one story, property was donated for the construction of a tuberculosis ward, but the City hesitated in supporting the acquisition. On the day of the city council vote Dr. Holmes called as many of her colleagues as possible and encouraged them, in turn, to persuade their city officials to vote in favor of the addition. In 1914, the result of these efforts was a state-of-the-art tuberculosis building.

By all accounts, Dr. May Salona Holmes was a physician’s physician. When asked why she had spent her life working in a hospital, she responded, “… because I liked bedside work, and I liked people.” She was a strong advocate for community health and recalled feeling deep dismay that so many children in Worcester drank unpasteurized milk. Dr. Holmes was also a scholar beyond the scope of her administrative responsibilities. Only five years into her career at the Belmont Hospital, she published an article entitled “A City Isolation Hospital” in The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (now the NEJM). In this article, Dr. Holmes described the facility and its clinical successes in treating diphtheria with newly introduced antitoxin. Her writing in the article is elegant, clear, and unplagued by the stylistic obscurity and elitism that is present in many scientific manuscripts.

It is impossible to discuss Dr. Holmes’ extraordinary work without also identifying the marks of obscene sexism that bookended her career. The Board of Health official who hired Dr. Holmes had said, “[of the Belmont Hospital] it’s way out in the country, and no man would stay there… and if we get a woman doctor, she can do just anything.” Similarly, an article published 43 years later in the Worcester Telegram announcing Dr. Holmes’ retirement both commended her many successes while also announcing the trustees’ preference for “preferably a man” successor.

Dr. Holmes was neither ignorant nor passive to this sexism. She stated in a 1941 interview, near the end of her career, that the preference for a male doctor over a female doctor was “a prejudice that had never been overcome.” Reflecting on her own hiring, Dr. Holmes said “They chose me for Belmont Hospital [because]… then I could be a housekeeper and do everything… and I did, and liked it.”

The contemporary reader might view Dr. Holmes’ response as defeatist or subservient to the cultural norms of the time. Rather, an intricate ethos emerges of an actualized individual who used her many talents to advance the Belmont Isolation Hospital.

Beyond her accomplishments, less is known about Dr. Holmes personally. One source suggested that the Belmont Hospital staff would have also liked to know her better. She did have a life-long friend and close personal confidant in Dr. Lois Nelson, another early female physician in Worcester and Dr. Holmes’ mentor at Memorial Hospital. After Dr. Holmes retired at the age of 73, she moved with her niece to Orleans on Cape Cod. During the next year, before she passed away in 1943, she spent time enjoying her rare book collection and growing herbs.

The Belmont Isolation Hospital served the residents of Worcester for 15 years after Dr. Holmes’ retirement. The hospital was closed in 1956 in response to decreasing prevalence of infectious diseases.

A final anecdote about Dr. Holmes illustrates her character. In 1895, during her residency, she traveled to her hometown of Lee. Familiar residents remarked about how successful she had become and asked whether she thought that a woman could be successful in medicine. Dr. Holmes responded with fierce support for her vocation. One evening, thirty years later, in 1928, Dr. Holmes, by then the veteran superintendent of the Belmont Isolation Hospital, was finishing work in preparation for a well-deserved vacation when she received an urgent call from Lee. A foodborne epidemic had broken out within the town and administrators were requesting her help. Dr. Holmes responded overnight with a team of specially trained nurses and doctors and was able to quickly control the epidemic and treat those who had become sick. Newspapers of the time credited Dr. Holmes’ interventions with saving over a hundred lives.

Michael E. Urbanowski, PhD (3rd year UMass Medical School Student)

Author’s Bibliographic Note: Significant effort in the search and aggregation of primary source documents preceded the Author’s own work on this topic. Special credit is due to Susan McDaniel Ceccacci for her work researching and writing the Historical Documentation Report on the Belmont Hospital Complex (2002). Credit is also due to the web-content authorship team at the Worcester Historical Museum. The Author read each primary source document referenced in this writing. Errors of interpretation, commentary, or content are solely the responsibility of the Author.

References:

1. Holmes MS. “A City Isolation Hospital.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. July 4th 1901.

2. “City Physicians, Nurses Fighting Epidemic at Lee.” Worcester Telegram. July 11th 1926. Accessed on March 15th 2021 from: https://worcesterhistorical.com/ digital-exhibits/worcester-hospitals/ (Note that the date printed on the article is likely a library error since the Lee Epidemic occurred in 1928)

3. Holmes MS. “Epidemic Septic Sore Throat: II. A Clinical Study of the 1928 Epidemic in Massachusetts” The New England Journal of Medicine. 200:805- 807. April 18th, 1929. Accessed on March 15th 2021from: https://www.nejm. org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM192904182001602

4. “Dr. May S. Holmes To Resign May 19.” Worcester Telegram. March 2nd, 1941. Accessed on March 15th 2021 from: https://worcesterhistorical.com/digital-exhibits/worcester-hospitals/

5. “The Woman Who ‘Did Everything’ At Belmont Hospital.” Sunday Telegram. April 20th, 1941. Accessed on March 15th 2021 from: https://worcesterhistorical.com/digital-exhibits/worcester-hospitals/

6. “Dr. May S. Holmes Taken by Death.” Worcester Telegram. April 4th, 1943. Accessed on March 15th 2021 from: https://worcesterhistorical.com/digital-exhibits/worcester-hospitals/

7. “Rites Wednesday For Dr. Holmes.” Worcester Evening Gazette. April 5th 1943. Accessed on March 15th, 2021 from: https://worcesterhistorical.com/ digital-exhibits/worcester-hospitals/

8. SusanMcDaniel Ceccacci. “Historical Documentation Report: Belmont Hospital Complex, 251 Belmont Street, Worcester, Massachusetts.” January 2002. Accessed by personal correspondence with SM Ceccacci.

9. “Worcester Hospitals” Part of the Digital Exhibits online content of the Worcester Historical Museum. Accessed on March 15th 2021 from https:// worcesterhistorical.com/digital-exhibits/worcester-hospitals/

10. Jones DS, Podolsky SH, Greene JA. “The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine” The New England Journal of Medicine. June 21st, 2012. 366:2333-2338. Accessed on March 15th 2021 from: https://www.nejm. org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1113569