In 1891, an article in the Omaha World-Herald titled “They Will Cure or Kill” announced newly licensed doctors. Metha Helfritz Jonas, MD, was listed among the group. After earning an AB in 1886 and later an AM on examination from the University of Iowa, Dr. Jonas received her MD from the Woman’s Medical College in Chicago in 1889. The college admitted women who were denied entrance to other medical schools due to discriminatory admissions practices.
After graduation, she married her childhood friend August Frederick Jonas, MD, in 1889. She moved to Omaha to join her husband in his surgical practice rather than open her own general practice. Dr. August Jonas became the dean of the Omaha Medical College from 1899 to 1902. He also served as a professor of clinical surgery at the Omaha Medical College and the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Medicine for 35 years.
According to an 1896 Western Medical Review account, Dr. Metha Jonas was “intensely devoted to her profession, was a conscientious, careful, safe practitioner, especially in diseases peculiar to her sex.” Her paper “Gynecology: Endometritis: Pathology and Treatment” was discussed at the May 1894 meeting of the annual session of the Nebraska State Medical Society.
Dr. Metha Jonas was best known for her skill in microscopy, conducting pathological laboratory work to confirm medical diagnoses. In an 1891 paper by Dr. August Jonas titled “Vaginal Hysterectomy Complicated by Pregnancy,” Dr. Metha Jonas’ use of the microscope to confirm the diagnosis of “carcinoma of the os and cervix uteri” was detailed. The microscopical confirmation informed the surgical procedure for the patient. Dr. Metha Jonas and seven other doctors observed and assisted in the surgery following the diagnosis.
In her 1893 article, “Tubercular Salpingitis,” she gave an account of her microscopical examination in the case of a patient diagnosed with the infection. Additionally, she wrote two papers on her work with the microscope in diagnosing renal disease.
Active in local and regional professional societies, she was a founding member of the Omaha-Douglas County Medical Society (1890) and held memberships in the Omaha Medical Society, the Medical Society of the Missouri Valley and the Nebraska State Medical Society.
Dr. Metha Jonas experienced poor health and continual pelvic pain during her adulthood. She died at Johns Hopkins Hospital after surgery on Oct. 28, 1895. The news came as a shock to her friends as few knew she had been sick. In his March 2, 1897, letter to Dr. Eliza H. Roul, Dr. August Jonas summarized his feelings for his wife:
“Dear Doctor: Your kind inquiry of Dec. 9th 96, regarding the death of my wife, Dr. Metha Jonas, has been before me so long. I have not yet recovered from the terrible loss, so that I can speak freely and without emotion. We had been lovers since we were babies, before our memories began, we grew up lovers and remained so until death took her away.”