AT THE end of her first year at Rush, Angela applied for residency at Mercy Hospital, which was administered by the Sisters of Mercy but was also the municipal hospital for the city. Sister Mary John of the Cross considered her suspiciously.
“How old are you, young woman?”
“Nineteen, S’ter. Going on twenty.”
“And you’re from Galway?”
“Carraroe in Connemara, Sister.”
“Rather wild country over there.”
“Yes, S’ter.”
“And you live with Dr. Gaughan’s family, but your name is Tierney.”
“Yes, S’ter.”
“I know where I heard about you. You’re the one who took on Hezikiah Dalton. Either you were very dumb or very brave.”
“I’m not at all brave, S’ter.”
“My friend Dr. Fredricks thinks so . . . Well, I don’t think you’re dumb. You want to work in the obstetrics ward. You think you’ll like delivering babies?”
“I helped in the delivery of two of my brothers back in Ireland.”
“They both lived?”
“For a time. Later they died with the rest of my family.”
“You’re a good young woman, Angela Tierney. We will be delighted to have you at Mercy. I hope you will be pleased with us. We try hard. Hospitals are better than they used to be, God knows. But we have a long way to go.”
Angela had read articles which suggested that those who deliver babies should wash their hands in chlorinated water every day to prevent the spread of puerperal fever among new members. Since she was, for all practical purpose, the head of the obstetrics department at Mercy, she posted orders for this practice and provided the chlorinated water. The nurses and midwives were skeptical until the cases of puerperal fever disappeared from the ward. She began to prepare a handbook of hygiene for mothers with new babies. It insisted on cleanliness for both mother and midwife.
She also had to do Cesareans, since there was no one else in the hospital who had done it. She had dashed over to Rush and seen her patron, Lenny Fredericks, who gave her some quick instructions. The first time, Angela was more frightened than the young woman. When the firstborn son appeared, happy and healthy, they both wept. Mother and child were promptly cleansed in chlorinated water, which some of the nuns claimed was Dr. Tierney’s Holy Water. She began free workshops for midwives, called “Keeping Mother and Child Alive: Childbirth and Sanitation.” Her fundamental assumption was that everything had to be clean.
When Angela graduated from Rush—her two years there had passed like two weeks—her family had a party for her. Bishop Muldoon came, as did Dr. Fredericks and nuns from both St. Mary’s and Mercy. She had the impression that the orders were competing for her. She had swept through her medical education in record time and was appointed to the Chicago Board of Health, an institution which had some real power. It was all very heady, she told herself, for an orphan from Connemara.
The day after the party, a week of torrential rain hit Chicago, the river flooded into the lake and cholera came to Chicago again. Contaminated drinking water, Angela told everyone on the Board of Health. They were inclined to agree. Sister John of the Cross asked Angela if she would take charge of a ward of nine Mercy nuns who would almost certainly die. Of course she would. She asked her father to send a shipment of a hundred five-gallon bottles of the spring water they had drunk at the lake—pure Wisconsin water. Then she insisted that each of the young women drink a half pint of the water after every bowel movement.
“It’s foul water that made you sick,” she told them confidently. “It will be this sweet water from the north woods that will keep you alive.”
An article in a French journal had argued, with a little evidence, that cholera victims died of dehydration. If le médicin could keep the patient hydrated with uncontaminiated water, they would survive until the résistance naturel in their bodies rid them of the infection.
Angela was about the same age as the young nuns. There was no reason why they should trust her, save that she was Dr. Tierney. On the third day of the “water torture,” as they called it, they came close to outright revolt. Angela led them in the recitation of the rosary and the singing of hymns, and they fell asleep. She remained awake, watching them closely.
“Dear God, grant life to these young brides of yours. They are brave, vital young women, and Irish at that, if I may remind you. Bring them back to health so that they may serve you in this strange new land which I share with them. Please, please please, I beg you.”
She fell asleep in her chair, and they woke her up at dawn.
“Angie, wake up, we want more of your magic water!”
“And right away!”
She led them in singing the Lourdes Hymn.
“Is this Lourdes water?”
“ ’Tis Holy Water from the north woods, and hasn’t his Lordship Bishop Muldoon blessed it for youse.”
They cheered for Bishop Muldoon.
Angela sent one of the nurses to bring Sister John of the Cross.
“Glory be to God!” she exclaimed as she came into the room. “You’ve saved them, Angela child, God bless you and keep you, didn’t you save them all!”
The good Bishop came to the hospital to bless them. They were convinced that the Bishop had worked a miracle for them.
“I think, Sisters, we ought to give thanks to God and to Dr. Tierney, who made a very wise decision.”
“And ourselves hating her because she made us drink all your water.”
“I didn’t bless that water, did I, Angela?”
“You did without noticing it, me Lord. I asked Jesus to bless it in your name and then I said a prayer over all the bottles.”
“You’re unstoppable.”
“Sister,” she said later to the administrator, “ask this man from the Board of Health to inspect the water supply at your little novitiate and replace the pipes that bring in sewer water. That’s what almost killed your wonderful young women. Make them drink the Bishop’s water until it’s fixed. If they run out, tell me and I’ll get more.”
Later Sister John told her that it was another miracle. How could she possibly have known about the pipes in the basement of the novitiate?
“No, you’re a great scientist and a living saint.”
She later learned that Mother General Sister Mary of the Holy Innocents refused to replace the pipes in the novitiate, so she sent people from the Board of Health over to the building with orders to demolish it.
Angela had kept careful records of each of the young nuns—age, weight, temperature, number of bowel movements, and traced-out charts showing how many pints of pure water were required.
“Angela, this is brilliant.” Timmy went exuberant, as he often did when he was excited. “You must write it up for the American Medical Association News and send it off to them by telegraph tonight.”
“I don’t want to write anything. It will just call attention to myself.”
“Let’s see what Pa says.”
Pa said that Timmy was right. He should write the bulletin and send it to the AMA, giving full credit to Angela Tierney, MD, of Rush Medical College and Mercy Hospital in Chicago.
“I’m going to bed,” Angela pleaded. “I haven’t had any sleep for a week.”
Timmy was back in a half hour with a draft.
“Looks good,” Papa Paddy said. “They’re going to want verification. So add my name to it, and yours too.”
“It’s her finding!”
“Timmy, I don’t care.”
“We’re there only for their verification. They’ll want to get it out right away. Here, you read it.”
Angela glanced at it.
“Looks fine to me. Are the numbers right, Timmy?”
“I have your notes.”
“Put them in Dad’s safe with the other stuff.”
She wasn’t sure what the other stuff was.
The AMA wanted to see her notes. Papa Paddy sent them by courier and requested a receipt. A one-word telegram came for Angela.
CONGRATULATIONS. STOP. JAMA.
Thus did Angela Tierney, MD, become famous all over the medical world at the age of twenty-two, eight years after she had arrived at the Central Depot on Chicago’s Lake Shore.
She would have two more encounters with serious illness in the next year: smallpox and pneumonia. Her dedication to fighting infectious diseases was sealed by these experiences.