Ida A. Bengtson

Following her hiring at the NIH, Bengtson helped to discover that the 1917 tetanus outbreak running rampant across the US, could be traced back to a batch of contaminated vaccine scarifiers. After this finding, Bengtson began further researching the infectious diseases presenting themselves in various communities across the United States. This research included the production of a typhus vaccine, and perhaps the most significant contribution of her career: the complement fixation test. This test led to revolutionary findings in regards to detecting the differentiation of diseases including Rocky Mountain spotted Fever and Q fever.[2]

Bengtson's most significant scientific achievement was in regards to an organism called Clostridium botulinum, which causes a paralytic disease in chicken. This organism was first recognized and isolated in 1895 by Emile van Ermengem from home cured ham implicated in a botulism outbreak.[5] The isolate was originally named Bacillus botulinus, after the Latin word for sausage, botulus. ("Sausage poisoning" was a common problem in 18th- and 19th-century Germany, and was most likely caused by botulism.)[6] However, isolates from subsequent outbreaks were always found to be anaerobic spore formers, so Bengtson proposed that the organism be placed in the genus Clostridium as the genus Bacillus was restricted to aerobic spore-forming rods.[7]

Based on her work with the US Public Health Service (USPHS),[8] now the National Institutes of Health (NIH), she was moved to Rolla, Missouri, to begin to investigate the trachoma pandemic that was particularly widespread in the region of Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, and Oklahoma. She arrived in Rolla in 1924 and took her place in the biology lab at the Missouri School of Mines (MSM, now Missouri S&T), in the basement of Parker Hall.[9]

Bengtson ran the trachoma hospital in Rolla, one of only 4 in the country at the time. It was in a small, wood framed house on Elm Street, but it soon was too small to serve all the people who needed treatment. After Bengtson left Rolla in 1931, a new trachoma hospital was built in 1939, and today houses the Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center on S&T's campus.[9]

During her short time in Rolla, Bengtson worked with animals and over 1500 human patients to isolate the bacteria causing the debilitating disease. She slowed the progression of the disease in over 1000 people, and, according to The Kansas City Star, Bengtson “made Rolla the chief American battle front in the war on” trachoma.[10]

She is also known for preparing, during 1935–1936, the standard for gas gangrene toxins and anti-toxins.[11] One of Bengtson's other research interests was typhus, an exceedingly dangerous interest and she, like many other typhus researchers, eventually contracted the disease, although she recovered fully.[11] Her chapter on the family “Rickettsiaceae” appeared in the sixth edition of the influential Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology after her official retirement.[1] She was awarded the Typhus Medal of the American Typhus Commission in 1947.[12]