Mattiedna Johnson (original) (raw)

Mattiedna Johnson (7 April 1918 - December 2003) was an African American nurse and laboratory technician. In the 1940s, she played a pertinent role in the cure for the fatal scarlet fever epidemic and other diseases that soldiers in World War II were getting. Johnson was the only African American, nurse, and laboratory technician that worked on the U.S. Army Medical Corp penicillin project at the University of Minnesota. She received no credit for her work developing penicillin. Johnson also co-founded the National Black Nurses Association, in 1971. She is the author of The Penicillin Project Dairy Notes and Tots Goes to Gbarnga.