When Marx, an anesthesiologist, got her medical degree in 1937, anesthesia was reserved for surgery — certainly not for “routine” matters like childbirth. She soon realized that there was a safe and effective method of pain relief during birth: the epidural.
She developed a special needle to administer it, which is still known by doctors as the Gertie Marx Spinal Needle. “She single-handedly pushed the development of obstetric anesthesiology as a specialty,” says Dr. Paul Goldiner, chairman of the anesthesiology department at New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Marx also founded the first medical journal in her field, Obstetric Anesthesia Digest. She died January 25 at age 91.