Miss Pauline M. Hald: A Pioneer Clinical Chemist.

Abstract

The measurement of blood chemistries is an integral part of the practice of medicine. Despite the importance of this to our profession, most practitioners have little understanding of the true history of its discovery. Dr. John Peters is touted worldwide as the father of modern clinical chemistry, and he co-wrote the first text in the field, entitled “Quantitative Clinical Chemistry” (1). Yet vanishingly few of us are aware of the essential contributions of Ms. Pauline Hald (1904–1998). Her name is not one we all know. But we should. Pauline Hald was born in 1904 to Frank and Josephine Hald, a young immigrant couple living in New Haven, CT. Her father was a German-born Catholic who, fleeing conscription into an army whose politics he did not support, emigrated to New Haven at the age of 17 years. There he met and married Miss Josephine Merritt of Nova Scotia, Canada. In a decision that was somewhat unusual for their time, Frank and Josephine Hald insisted that their daughter have a high-quality education. After graduating high school in 1917, she was accepted to …