She was a nurse in the late 1800s, one of the first to graduate from Newark German Hospital's Christina Trefz Training School for Nurses in 1895 at the age of nineteen. Within three years she was a head nurse.
She served as a voluntary nurse in the Spanish American Civil War. She ended up in Cuba, where yellow fever was a raging epidemic. She and a few others voluntarily donated their very own lives for the purpose of finding the cause and manner in which the disease was spread. Volunteers only received a hundred bucks with an extra hundred added if they became ill. Now, as you can see, that would have bought quite a few stamps back then, but still... (stamp was made after her death, but you get my drift. I believe stamps were one cent in the early 1900s)
After her second infectious mosquito bite, she died, putting a stop to the human experiments on American subjects altogether. She was only 25 years of age. She was not the only one to die, but she was the only woman to die from this.
There is a medical center in New Jersey named after her and she was buried with full military honors for her sacrifice and service.
I must say, that seems awful brave to me, to give your life in the hopes of saving others, to sacrifice the chance of family, love, children.
Find more information on the following sites:
http://www.aahn.org/gravesites/maass.html
http://www.nurses.info/personalities_clara_maass.htm
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