Jordan, Sara Murray (1884–1959)

American physician who was co-founder of the Lahey Clinic and director of its gastroenterology department. Born Sara Claudia Murray on October 20, 1884, in Newton, Massachusetts; died on November 21, 1959, in Boston; one of seven children of Patrick Andrew Murray (owner of a carriage and auto body shop) and Maria (Stuart) Murray; attended public schools in Newton, Massachusetts; Radcliffe College, A.B., 1905; University of Munich, Ph.D. in archaeology and classical philology, 1908; Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, M.D., 1921; married Sebastian Jordan (a lawyer), on January 14, 1913 (divorced 1921); married Penfield Mower (a broker), on September 26, 1935; children: (first marriage) Mary Jordan.

The second of seven children, Sara Jordan was born in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1884. Jordan became interested in a medical career as a child, but her family would not support her choice until much later. In the meantime, she excelled as a scholar, graduating from Radcliffe in only three years and earning a Ph.D. in archaeology and classical philology from the University of Munich in 1913. Jordan then married a German lawyer she had met at the university and had a daughter. Unfortunately, the marriage was an unhappy one, and the couple parted ways during World War I. (They divorced in 1921, and Jordan would later marry Boston broker Penfield Mower.) Returning with her daughter to her family home in Brookline, Massachusetts, Jordan finally obtained her parents' permission to enter Tufts for premed studies. The college, however, would not allow her to matriculate and kept her on "probationary" status until she threatened to appeal to the American Medical Association. In 1921, she was finally awarded her M.D. degree, graduating at the head of her class.

Jordan completed her internship at Worcester Memorial Hospital and received her training in gastroenterology in Chicago. In 1922, she and three other doctors (two surgeons and an anesthesiologist) started the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Massachusetts, then one of the few independent clinics in the Boston area. Even though she was practicing with two surgeons, Jordan was a proponent of noninvasive treatment when dealing with her gastrointestinal patients, many of them ulcer-prone Boston entrepreneurs. Ahead of her time, she advocated stress reduction, rest, and a regulated diet to treat many stomach problems. She counseled those over 50 to have an afternoon nap and an evening nip to control ulcer attacks. Although ulcers are now routinely treated with antibiotics, her treatment was considered the best at the time.

Jordan served many professional organizations and was the first woman elected to the board of directors of the Boston Chamber of Commerce. She was also the first woman president of the American Gastroenterological Association (1942–44), and was secretary, vice chair, and chair of the AMA Section on Gastroenterology (1941–48). Her numerous awards for medical contributions included the Elizabeth Blackwell Citation (1951) and the Julius Friedenwald Medal (1952).

Sara Jordan developed a side career as a writer, producing a popular cookbook, Good Food for Bad Stomachs, in 1951. After her retirement in 1958, she wrote a syndicated column, "Health and Happiness," providing a simple, common-sense approach to disease prevention. Jordan died of self-diagnosed colon cancer at the age of 75.

sources:

Candee, Marjorie Dent, ed. Current Biography 1954. NY: H.W. Wilson, 1954.

Sicherman, Barbara, and Carol Hurd Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts