Which woman recovered after receiving penicillin at Yale New Haven Hospital in March 1942?

Anne Sheafe Miller recovered after receiving penicillin at Yale New Haven Hospital in March 1942.

Miller was suffering from streptococcal septicemia after a miscarriage and had a fever of 106 °F. Her physician, John Bumstead, obtained a small emergency supply of penicillin with help from Yale physician John Fulton and researchers connected to Howard Florey’s work.

The response was dramatic. Within about 48 hours, Miller’s fever had subsided and she began eating again. Laboratory results also showed a sharp fall in the bacteria recovered from her blood. Because penicillin was in extremely short supply, researchers collected her urine and recovered roughly three grams of the drug for reuse.

Miller’s case is sometimes confused with the first U.S. penicillin treatments of 1940, which involved two men with bacterial endocarditis at Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Her 1942 treatment was a separate milestone: it demonstrated the life-saving potential of increasingly available American-produced penicillin.