Ruth May Tunnicliff

Tunnicliff was a research bacteriologist at the John McCormick Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases. She co-authored a book on gangrene, Noma: Gangrenous stomatitis, water cancer, scorbutic cancer, gangrena oris, gangrene of the mouth (1907).^[6] She is best known for developing Tunnicliff's serum, which could prevent the measles if given soon after exposure.^[1][3][7]

During World War I, she held the title "Contract Surgeon" with the United States Army,^[8][9] and worked at Camp Pike in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Camp George Meade in Maryland, during the 1918 influenza pandemic.^[10][11] Later in her career she worked on dental topics with Carolyn Hammond of the Chicago Dental Infirmary.^[12][13][14] She served a term as president of the Chicago Society of Pathologists.^[15]

Tunnicliff published her research on measles, rubella,^[16] scarlet fever,^[17] influenza,^[18] and other topics in The Journal of the American Medical Association^[19][20] The New England Journal of Medicine,^[21] Experimental Biology and Medicine,^[22] and The Journal of Infectious Diseases.^[8][23]

Tunnicliff lived in Chicago with her sister Sarah and their mother. Their mother died in 1936.^[24] Ruth Tunnicliff died in 1946, aged 70 years, in Chicago.^[15] In 2015, she was one of the women honored by the McDonough County Women's Social Service Memorial, Facing the Storm, a bronze statue in Macomb, Illinois.^[1][25]