in memoriam

Dr. Virginia Apgar '29

Dr. Virginia Apgar, honorary degree
recipient in I965 and alumnae trustee
from I966 to 1971, died unexpectedly
in New York on August 7.

Virginia Apgar '29 was one of the
world's most distinguished, most re-
spected and most beloved women in
medicine. A person of great moral
courage, she brought to her profession
a warm heart, boundless energy gen-
erously expended for others and an in-
quisitive mind eager to embrace new
ideas.
Virginia grew up in a lively house-
hold. She once said that she came
from a family that never sat down.
Her father was of a scientific bent and
a born musician. With him and her
gifted brother she shared deep interest
in music. Adept in the use of tools,
her father taught Virginia skills which
were to serve in good stead when she
started to make her own stringed in-
struments much later in life. The fam-
ily had impromptu concerts and Vir-
ginia and her brother Lawrence C.
Apgar, professor of music at Earlham
College, often played duets.
In college Virginia carried a full
schedule. In addition to her studies,
she was active in athletics, played in
the college orchestra, took part in
dramatics and worked to help pay her
way. In 1929, in a letter to President
Woolley recommending Virginia as a
candidate for a fellowship, I wrote:
"Miss Apgar has been an excellent
student in both histology and medical
zoology. It is seldom that one finds a
student so thoroughly immersed in
her subject and with such a wide
knowledge of it. . . . I am, therefore,
very glad to recommend Miss Apgar
to you and I believe that any encour-
agement which is given to her in the
way of a fellowship will be thorou hly
appreciated and well used." It was my
privilege not only to know Virginia

9

as a student but also as a friend. Ex-
cept for reunions when she stayed
with her class, my home was hers in
South Hadley. She was a delight to

When Virginia graduated from the
Columbia University College of Phy-
sicians and Surgeons in 1933, she
went into surgery, but after two years
she felt that in the United States this
field had no place for a woman unless
she had an independent income. Vir-
ginia was in debt. She turned to the
developing field of anaesthesiology. Up
to this time the open-drop ether pro-
cedure administered by nurses was
the usual technique. But new methods
were being devised and Virginia dem-
onstrated one of her outstanding char-
acteristics: she went to the University
of Wisconsin Medical School, which
had the best anaesthesiology depart-
ment in this country to learn the new
techniques. She was the only woman
in the class and she became the 50th
American doctor to be a board-certi-
fied anaesthesiologist. T-
built up a for-
department at P. m

sor in the medicals&wl.

Since much of her work was in the
delivery room, she organized in 1949
and was head of obstetrical anaesthesi-
ology. She estimated that she had
helped to deliver about 17,000 babies.
Concerned about the health of the
newly born baby, she gathered data
from 1949 to 1952 to establish cri-
teria for prognoses at the earliest pos-
sible moment. This study was believed
to be the first extensive program in
neonatal research ever undertaken in
the United States. ngdata were fi-
nally redukd to five signs, now known
a the world as the Apgar score,
to&x&w&h .GO seconds after_-:
baby's WAnd feet were visible,.
Some$Ae made APGAR the acronym

have. ?

-__I_

for the test: A, appearance (color);
p, pulse; g, grimace (reflect irritabil-
ity) ; a, activity (muscle tone) ; r, res-
piration. Each sign is worth 0, 1 or 2,
and 10 is the best score.
One of her colleagues at this time
described Virginia as "a rnarvellously
selfless human being" and told the
following story: "When my son then
one year old needed a hernia opera-
tion, Virginia learned that he hated
elevators. You know what she did?
She took him in her arms up nine
flights of stairs to the operating room.
I love that girl."
Virginia believed increasingly that
perinatal deaths were a public health
problem so in 1958-1959, during her
sabbatical leave, she decided to go to
The Johns Hopkins University to learn
the methods used in this field. She there
earned the degree of master of public
health. At the end of that year, offi-
cials of the National Foundation-
March of Dimes persuaded her to
join them as the head of the division
on congenital malformations with su-
pervision of grants for genetic re-
search. At the time of her death she
was senior vice president in charge of
medical af€airs. When she was 63,
Virginia returned to The Johns Hop-
kins University during 1972-1973 to
further her knowledge of medical ge-
netics by studying biostatistics, epi-
demiology, human biology, cell biol-
ogy and computer sciences.
Virginia never forgot that she was a
doctor and was not afraid to involve
herself when she passed scenes of
accidents. She carried in her handbag
an airway tube, sharp pocket knife and
Band-Aids. The knife was for emer-
gency tracheotomies. She once said
that she had used the airway tube in
sixteen automobile accidents to re-
suscitate victims, and is quoted to have
remarked, "Nobody, but nobody is
going to stop breathing on me."

,

178

MOUNT HOLYOKE ALUMNAE QUARTERLY

The awareness of academic institu-
tions and of the public of Virginia's
important contributions to the fields
of maternal and infant health is
shown by the number of awards with
which she was honored, seven in 1973.
These recognitions must have meant
much to her as she stated recently
that she considered her mission in
life was to help mothers deliver healthy
babies and to prevent birth defects.
Virginia believed deeply in the pur-
poses and the activities of the National
Foundation-March of Dimes and she
worked effectively to promote its in-
terests. So was she also a loyal and
dedicated alumna of Mount Holyoke
College. She was a delightful and spicy
speaker at alumnae club meetings and
wherever she was and whenever she
could, she paid tribute to her alma
mater. From 1966 to 1971 Virginia
was an alumna trustee and served on
the selection committee for the presi-
dent. She was always interested in
women doctors and while she was on
campus she met with students and
encouraged them to enter the profes-
sion. She also started a file of Mount
Holyoke graduates from 1968-1972 in
medical schools to learn what she
could of our students. She was unable
to complete this. However, she did
keep in touch with some of them. She
was always eager to return to the
College after her trusteeship to talk
to students including those in classes
of Dr. Carol Craig (director of the
Pattie J. Groves Medical Center), on
topics dealing with birth defects, ge-
netic counseling and other aspects of
her work. Her young friends, I may
say, thought she hung the moon.

With Joan Beck, Virginia co-au-
thored the book Is My Baby All
Right?, published by Trident Press in
1972. The two collaborators worked
together for several years, Virginia
often making trips to Chicago for con-
ferences. During her career Virginia
wrote 70 articles and was responsible
for three Hms, but the book with Mrs.
Beck was the crowning achievement.
This is an important book, well written
and beautifully illustrated by Mr.
Beck.
Devoted and deeply involved as she
was in her work, Virginia was a per-
son of varied interests in which she
was no dilettante. She was not one to

waste time, and when she came to
South Hadley she often brought along
March o€ Dimes correspondence, mag-
azines to clip, or if it were the New
Year, a batch of "Ginnygrams" to
which she often added personal notes.
These "Ginnygrams" not only kept
hundreds of friends in touch with her
but frequently kept mutual friends in
touch with each other. Virginia was
an avid stamp collector, a hobby
which brought her relaxation after her
busy days. Her volumes contained
over 50,000 stamps and at Christmas
time each year she shared some of
these with young friends all over the
world whom she had met in her trav-
els. On one of her visits to my home
her first request was for a bowl of
water to soak off from their backing
stamps she had brought with her. She
had in years gone by fished in the St.
Lawrence River some 25 times, and
she was looking forward in July, 1974
to return to that fishing ground with
a new rod.

Gardening was another source of
relaxation for her. Not only did she
keep her apartment full of growing
things but she reveled in planting and
caring for both a flower and vegetable
garden. She traveled with her camera
and sent back to her friends pictures
of her visits with them. As she was
sometimes the only passenger in a
small private plane, she decided to
learn to fly so that in a crisis she could
bring a plane down. She, therefore,
took lessons in flying all over the coun-
try whenever she was near enough
an airfield where she could practice.
Another diversion for her was the
playing of golf.
Music, a part of her younger days,
was her everlasting satisfaction and
joy. In addition to listening and play-
ing herself, Virginia learned to make
her own stringed instruments. She
made a viola, violin, cello and had
nearly completed a mezzo violin. A
happy preoperative conversation with
a patient, Mrs. Carleen Hutchins,
brought to her this wonderfully grati-
fying occupation. An event at the be-
ginning of this avocation is the basis
of one of her favorite stories. Mrs.
Hutchins had spied a well worn but
beautiful curly maple shelf in a tele-
phone booth in the hospital. As there
was no legitimate way to get it, the
two surreptitiously replaced the wanted
curly maple shelf with a replica made
of another wood. This maple shelf
became the back of Virginia's first
viola.
She was an active member of the
Amateur Chamber Music Players, an
international organization, and she met
with different groups whenever she
could at home and in her travels. She
was also a member and officer of the
Catgut Acoustical Society, worldwide
also, which was devoted to the re-
search, development and improvement
of stringed instruments.
In her high school year book, the
list of her many activities ended with
this question, "Frankly, how did she
do it?" Virginia had a tremendous
spirit. Early in life she had captured
the excitement of living and she never
lost it. To us who are bereft, she has
left a wonderful heritage.

CHRISTIANNA SMITH '15
Professor Emeritus of Zoology

PALL 1974

179