Ruth Patrick: The River Doctor

Abstract

Ruth Patrick was born on November 26, 1907 in Topeka, Kansas. She displayed a keen interest in nature, science, and the “outdoor world” when she was very young. Ruth frequently spoke of the excitement she would feel when her father, Frank, would bring out one of his four microscopes and encourage his children to look through it. Ruth relished sitting on her father Frank's knee to look through his microscope. She would later write “I forget the whole world when I sit at my microscope.” Her father, although a lawyer, shared and nurtured Ruth's passion for science and provided her with her own microscope when she was only 7-year old. Ruth was totally smitten with the natural world. She would collect worms, mushrooms, drops of pond water, soil, and other natural treasures to examine under her microscope. These early explorations led to her passion to understand and to learn how to study and protect the “health” of water bodies. After graduating from the Sunset Hill School for girls in Kansas City, MO. (now Pembroke Hill School where Ruth developed an interest in botany) she took general biology courses at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Then “at my mother's insistence” according to Ruth, she was shipped off to Coker College in Hartsville South Carolina. Ruth resisted her mother's wishes that she marry and learn the social graces and decided to study botany instead. Her father felt that Coker could not offer her enough science so he sent her to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Cold Spring Harbor for summer courses. During her junior year at Coker she briefly considered becoming a physician but claims “I quickly reverted to botany and specifically to diatoms.” At a time, when few women studied science in college, Ruth never considered not going on to graduate school. Her father encouraged her to go to any university in the country where she could pursue her passion and she settled on the University of Virginia where she could continue to study algae and specifically diatoms. In her doctoral dissertation, she pursued an investigation of the diatoms of Southeast Asia and she received her Ph.D. in 1934 at the age of 26. While a graduate student she married Charles Hodge IV who she met at Cold Spring Harbor but she kept her father's family name at his specific request. She explained “When I got married my father said to Charles: ‘I always wanted to be a scientist. Would you mind if Ruth kept the name of Patrick in her research? I'd like to see it go on.” Dr. Ruth Patrick as Assistant Curator of microscopy at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. 1937. Photo courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. She began her association with the Academy of Natural Sciences, which had the best collection of diatoms in America, as a graduate student in 1933. In 1937, she became an assistant curator of microscopy in the diatom herbarium, and worked without pay for 8 years. Only in 1945 was she put on the payroll. And 2 years later in 1947 She founded the Department of Limnology at Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (now called the Patrick Center for Environmental Research) and headed that department for 26 years. During this period, she honed her expertise in diatom systematics and community ecology. Her breakthrough came in 1948, when she led a study of Conestoga Creek in Lancaster County, PA, to obtain data on the relationship between diatoms and water quality. The creek was chosen because it suffered from many types of pollution, including sewage, fertilizer runoff, toxic substances and metals from industry. Her team, including a chemist, a bacteriologist, and animal and plant experts, determined the types of pollutants in sections of the river and then identified the plant and animal species. Dr. Patrick found that some species of diatoms thrived in water that was heavily contaminated with organic material like human sewage, while other flourished among chemical pollution. Dr. Ruth Patrick and the 1948 team that studied the Conestoga River, Lancaster County, PA. Standing from left to right): Charles B. Wurtz, James A. Jones, Herbert W. Levi, Ruth, Mary Gojdics, John Cairns, Sarie Lynn Carter, John Wallace, John Rehm, and Thomas Dolan, IV, (with and unidentified person in the truck). Photo courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Refining this finding, she was able to examine a sample of stream water under a microscope, determine the type and numbers of diatoms present, and tell what kind of pollution was present and how severe it was. To check the number and types of diatoms, Dr. Patrick invented a device called the diatometer, a plastic box-containing microscope slides that when strategically placed in a stream collects the maximum number of the organisms. More broadly, her results showed that under healthy conditions, many species of organisms representing different groups should be present. The Catherwood Diatometer designed by Ruth Patrick. Photo courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Her pioneering research and the notion that healthy diatom communities are species-rich and diverse had a huge impact on the science of ecology in general and led to understanding that species diversity was an important measure of ecosystem health across both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. In the pursuit of this research, Dr. Patrick realized that “To be a good biologist and make contributions you first have to learn one group of organisms in great depth.” Through her interest in studying and monitoring the health of aquatic ecosystems she brought diatom science to the forefront at a time when the diatom flora of the United States was poorly known and poorly studied. With her colleague Charles Reimer she published the first two comprehensive books on the diatoms of the United States in 1966 and 1975. Before the publication of these volumes North American Scientists were dependent largely on European literature for studying diatoms and these volumes led to a flurry of activity in diatom science in the United States. The Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia became the “diatomists Mecca.” Scientists from the United States and beyond would study and observe specimens of diatoms in what would be the largest and most important diatom herbarium in North America. She has studied over 600 bodies of water and was the consultant to over 600 industries and governmental agencies, an adviser to presidents and became know internationally as the “River Doctor.” All of this activity was spurred by Dr. Patrick's passion studying the health of streams and rivers by monitoring diatom diversity. She was the chairwoman of the Department of Limnology until 1973, when she was named to the Francis Boyer Chair of Limnology. From 1973 to 1976 she was chairwoman of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia's Board. She also taught at the University of Pennsylvania for more than 35 years. She advised President Lyndon B. Johnson on water pollution and President Ronald Reagan on acid rain and served on pollution and water-quality panels at the National Academy of Sciences and the Interior Department, among others. During her career Dr. Patrick wrote over 200 scientific manuscripts and several books. Dr. Patrick was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1970. In 1975, she received the $150,000 John and Alice Tyler Ecology Award, then the world's richest prize for scientific achievement and in 1966 Dr. Patrick was honored by president Bill Clinton with the National Medal of Science. President Bill Clinton honors Dr. Patrick with the National Medal of Science. Photo courtesy of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Regardless of the rigors of research and management of the Patrick Center Dr. Ruth Patrick always had time for students, staff, and visiting scientists at the Patrick Center. Dr. Ruth Patrick at 100-year old chatting with visiting scientists at the Patrick Center. Front, Jeff Johansen & Dr. Patrick. Back Kalina Manoylov, Kurt Carpenter, Lonel Cingula, Rex Lowe, Jason Zalack. (Photo by Rex Lowe) Dr. Patrick lived for many years in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. Her first husband, Charles Hodge IV, whom she married in 1931, died in 1985. Her second husband, Lewis H. Van Dusen Jr., died in 2004. Ruth Patrick died on Monday September 23 at a retirement community in Lafayette Hill, PA. She was 105. A son, Charles Hodge V, and several stepchildren and grandchildren survived her. In the library at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, now a part of Drexel University, the room is decorated with portraits of notable scientists, mostly men, from the Academy. The only portrait of a female scientist is that of Ruth Patrick which speaks volumes of prominence in a science once dominated by men. Rex Lowe, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA; lowe@bgsu.edu