BELMONT — As the world continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, one Belmont woman played an vital role in the fight against the polio epidemic in the early 1900s, and was recognized as the United States’ leading encephalitis specialist. 

Josephine Bicknell Neal was an infectious disease expert known for her extensive research on encephalitis, meningitis and poliomyelitis.

The Belmont native studied physics at Bates College before attending Cornell University for medical school, graduating with honors at the latter.

Neal, from 1929-1944, held a stint as a clinical professor of neurology at Columbia University.

Prabook, a biographical encyclopedia, hails Neal on its website as “one of the great figures in medicine and public health, particularly in the diagnosis, treatment, and control of infectious diseases of the nervous system.”

As a member of the New York City health department, Neal worked on the front lines of the fight against polio epidemic in the 1920s and 1930s, according to an article appearing on the Bates College website.

In fact, Neal was, per Bates, one of a few physicians to receive an experimental polio inoculation.

Prior to working the front lines of the polio fight, Neal had spent her time with the NYC health department researching meningitis.

Neal was considered the nation’s top encephalitis specialist, according to Time Magazine. Encephalitis lethargica, or simply encephalitis, emerged as a new infectious disease towards the conclusion of World War I, according to an article by Kenton Kroker.

She was an author of numerous academic studies, the book The Clinical Study of Encephalitis, and chapters on meningitis in a pair of widely used medical textbooks.

A paper Neal wrote on encephalitis lethargica was read before the Section on Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in June 1919, and according to Paul Bernard Foley’s book Encephalitis Lethargica: The Mind and Brain Virus, was “one of the most important early papers on the disease.”

“Neal was a leading light in pediatric neurology, and her achievements as a female physician were certainly unusual in her time,” Foley wrote.