The Three Careers And Their Intersection
Bessie Blount’s life is often discussed in terms of three distinct careers: physical therapist and inventor in the 1940s and 1950s, forensic scientist and law enforcement consultant beginning in 1969, and forensic consultant in private practice through the 1970s, 1980s, and into the 1990s.
But the three careers were not separate. They were variations on the same core interest and the same core skill: close observation of the physical world, identification of patterns, and the development of practical tools and methods for addressing specific problems.
As a physical therapist, she observed that veterans without hands could learn to use their teeth and feet. As an inventor, she designed devices that applied this insight to specific functional needs. As a forensic scientist, she observed that handwriting reflected physical and mental state. As a document examiner, she developed methods for detecting forgery and authentication.
The observational intelligence that connected these careers was consistent throughout. So was the inventive orientation: when she identified a problem, she designed a solution.
The seven-year-old who responded to being punished for left-hand writing by developing the ability to write with her teeth and feet was the same person, decades later, who responded to being told that the army couldn’t design a feeding device for amputees by spending ten months building one in her kitchen. And the same person who responded to her patients’ changing handwriting by developing an understanding of medical graphology that eventually took her to Scotland Yard.
The thread is continuous.