Jane Hinton | |
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| Born | (1919-05-01)May 1, 1919 |
| Died | April 9, 2003(2003-04-09) (aged 83) |
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Dr. Jane Hinton (1919–2003) was a pioneer in the study of bacterial antibiotic resistance and one of the first two African-American women to gain the degree ofDoctor of Veterinary Medicine (1949).[1] Prior to her veterinary medicine studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, she had been a laboratory technician atHarvard, co-developing theMueller–Hinton agar, a culture medium that is now commonly used to test bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics.[2][3] She later practiced as a small animal veterinarian in Massachusetts, and then as a federal government inspector investigating disease outbreak in livestock for the Department of Agriculture.[1]
Jane Hinton was born on May 1, 1919.[4] Her father,William Augustus Hinton (1883–1959), was abacteriologist andpathologist who was an expert in the diagnosis and treatment ofsyphilis, including the development of tests for syphilis.[5] The son of former slaves,[6] he was the first African-American professor atHarvard University and the first African-American author of a textbook. He entered laboratory medicine becauseracism in Boston prevented him from gaining an internship in medicine.[7] Jane Hinton's mother was Ada Hawes (b. 1878), a high school teacher and social worker, born in Georgia.[8][9][10] William and Ada married in 1909,[7] and had two daughters, Jane and Ann Hinton Jones.[4][11] As a child, Jane attended school in Europe, where her parents believed she would have the best education available as a black student. She returned to the United States to complete high school at Montpelier Seminary in Vermont in 1935, before earning her undergraduate degree at the age of 20 fromSimmons College in 1939.[12]
Prior to her veterinary career, Jane Hinton worked in a laboratory in the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at Harvard University, where she co-developed theMueller–Hinton agar withJohn Howard Mueller.[3] This agar was a medium developed to isolate theNeisseria bacteria that causedgonorrhea andmeningogoccal meningitis.[13] Mueller and Hinton discovered thatstarch within the agar helped aid bacterial growth and prevented bacteria toxins from interfering with antibiotic testing.[13] It became the most widely usedculture medium for Neisseria. In the 1960s, tests indicated its suitability for detecting whether bacteria are susceptible to antibiotics.[2] TheClinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, which establishes the best international laboratory standards, adopted theKirby–Bauer technique using Mueller–Hinton agar as thegold standard for antibiotic testing.[13]
During World War II, Hinton also worked as a lab technician in Arizona.[14] After the War, Hinton studied veterinary medicine at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, gaining herDoctor of Veterinary Medicine (VMD) degree in 1949. She andAlfreda Johnson Webb, who graduated with a VMD from the Tuskegee Institute (nowTuskegee University) that year, were the first African-American women veterinarians.[1] There had been only four African-American VMD graduates at the University of Pennsylvania before Hinton gained her degree, and there would not be another until 1968.[15] Hinton and Webb were also the first African-American members of the Women's Veterinary Medicine Association.[16]
After gaining her degree, Hinton practiced as a small animal veterinarian inCanton, Massachusetts, and then a federal government inspector inFramingham, Massachusetts, where she worked to combat disease outbreaks in livestock.[1]
Jane Hinton, together with John Taylor, the first African-American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania veterinary medicine school, were honored during the school's centennial celebrations by the Minority Veterinary Students association in 1984.[17]
Jane Hinton retired in 1960 and died at the age of 84 on April 9, 2003.[18]