Josephine Bicknell Neal

Background

Josephine Bicknell Neal was born on October 10, 1880 in Belmont, Maine, United States. She was the daughter of Alton J. and Mary Alexander Neal.

Education

Josephine received her bachelor's degree with honors in physics, from Bates College in 1901. She taught school in Maine until she had saved sufficient funds to enroll in medical school. In 1910 she received the Doctor of Medicine with honors, from Cornell University Medical College.

Career

She was licensed to practice medicine in the state of New York in 1913 and began work in New York City.

From 1910 through 1914 she served in the meningitis division of the research laboratories of the New York City Department of Health. She was then an instructor of medicine at the Cornell University medical school from 1914 to 1920. By 1922, Neal had begun the association with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University that she maintained for the rest of her life. She was first both an assistant in the department of medicine and an attending physician in the pediatric tuberculosis section of the Vanderbilt Clinic. She held these posts, with some slight changes in title, until 1927, when she was made director of a major research study on encephalitis. In 1929 she became clinical professor of neurology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, a position that she held for the next fifteen years. She also held appointments to the staff of the Neurological Institute, as consultant in neurology from 1932 to 1935, as attending neurologist from 1936 to 1938, as consultant in 1938 and 1939, and as assistant attending neurologist from 1939 through 1955. In 1936 she had been certified as a specialist in neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Neal also served on the attending medical staffs of the Willard Parker Hospital, Saint Vincent's Hospital, and the New York Infirmary.

She directed the William J. Matheson Survey of Epidemic Encephalitis from 1927 to 1929 and was executive secretary of the William J. Matheson Commission for Encephalitis Research.

She wrote many articles for medical journals and contributed to Isaac Arthur Abt's Pediatrics and to Frederick Tice's Practice of Medicine.

Although she retired from her academic posts in 1941, she continued consultation and research work until she died in New York City.

Achievements

• Neal's most notable scholarly contributions were in the field of encephalitis research: her most notable publication was Encephalitis: A Clinical Study (1942). Neal's citation, published in the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association, recognized "her distinguished achievement in the control of communicable disease". Her work with encephalitis and meningitis also led her to become involved with research on infantile paralysis and poliomyelitis, and she served as the secretary of the International Commission for the Study of Infantile Paralysis from 1929 to 1932. She was one of the first volunteers to receive a new and experimental vaccine against that disease. In 1953 she was awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Citation of the New York Infirmary.

Membership

Neal was elected a fellow of the American College of Physicians in 1931.

Connections

Father:

Alton J. Neal

Mother:

Mary Alexander Neal