A lifetime of discovery

By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Pupils at East Middle School got a dose of history Wednesday from speakers at the school's third annual Black History Month program.
Keynote speaker for "Black Magic: The Magic of Black Inventors and Scientists Lives On" was Mattiedna Johnson, a registered nurse who aided in the development of penicillin and was a founder of the Ohio Black Nurses Association.
Johnson delighted pupils with stories about her life that started with her birth in 1918 and continued with her achievements in science.
Johnson said her calling was established at birth. She said she was not breathing when she was born and her father promised God that "if He would spare this child's life, I will give her back to you in life."
She began stirring.
A promise kept: Later, she said, she decided to make good on the promise her father told her about by going to Africa and serving as a medical missionary.
Johnson also told the pupils about a baby she delivered in a cotton field when she was 17, but it was another infant who died in her arms that led Johnson to the research for which she is best known.
Johnson said it was early in her nursing career when she watched the baby die of scarlet fever. She painted a vivid picture of the hospital morgue and the baby's being "tagged."
Johnson was later hired by Dr. Clyde Christianson, a pathologist working on the development of penicillin which would become a potent cure for several diseases.
She used her training as a laboratory technician and registered nurse to set up isolation procedures for many of the disease materials that had been shipped to the project for testing.
Using microscopic lenses, Johnson said she identified a germ that she named "staphylococcus" because it destroyed white blood cells.
Johnson said she also identified the "cocci" germ in trench mouth, a condition in which the mouth would get dry, swollen and bloody as the soldier lay in trenches during war. She named that germ "streptococcus" because it destroyed red blood cells.
Those terms are still commonly used today.
Home-grown answer: Johnson said she tested a variety of molds in the search of penicillin, but it was a mold that grew on cooked squash in her refrigerator that killed germs.
She tested the first specimen by injecting herself.
Johnson said the information and process to make the penicillin was sent to three pharmaceutical companies for immediate production.
Johnson was never paid for her contribution in the project, but was acknowledged in the Congressional Record by U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes of Cleveland in 1990.
Johnson has a self-published biography titled "Tots Goes to Gbarnga."
Clifton J. Brown, founder of the traveling exhibit, "Reflections in Black: African American History on Wheels," gave the pupils facts on important inventions by blacks such as the traffic light, gas mask and microphone.
He also said the original Statue of Liberty was of a man breaking free from arm and leg shackles, but was changed to the woman holding a torch in New York Harbor because it was believed at the time that the original would offend Southern whites.
Bringing the list of inventions to a pre-teen level, Brown informed the pupils that Super Soaker, a high-powered water gun, was also invented by a black man in the early 1980s.