Within minutes of birth, virtually every child today receives an Apgar Score from a delivery nurse or midwife. This simple but crucial test devised in 1952 by Virginia Apgar evaluates infants immediately after birth and is able to identify babies that may be at risk during their first few minutes and hours of life. As an anesthesiologist who attended over 17,000 births, Apgar felt the need to act on her conviction that birth is the most hazardous time of life. Apgar's own life and achievements ranged far beyond her internationally recognized test of newborn health, resulting in the 1997 release of a twenty-cent U. S. postage stamp commemorating her many accomplishments.

Virginia Apgar was born in Westfield, New Jersey, to a very musical family. Her father, Charles Emory Apgar, a businessman and automobile salesman, was an amateur musician. Her mother, Helen May, shared the family's interest in music as did Virginia's...