Germaine Malaterre-Sellier is remembered in medicine for work that altered practice rather than merely argument.
The record lists Germaine Malaterre-Sellier as French nurse, feminist, suffragist and pacifist.
Germaine Malaterre-Sellier was born at 9th arrondissement of Paris in 1889. Her recorded nationality is France.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, laboratory medicine, vaccines and public health began to change mortality at population scale.
Most medical progress is invisible: it shows up as an illness that no longer kills anyone.
Recognition followed: Officer of the Legion of Honour.
That the work was done from France matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Germaine Malaterre-Sellier died in 1967, aged 78. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
Achievements
- Officer of the Legion of Honour
