An earlier injury may have worsened some of her problems.

By the 1910s, her condition had become increasingly serious.

Historical sources describe a degenerative bone disease affecting the ear and skull.

The woman who had spent so much of her life traveling to sick patients now needed medical treatment herself.

She underwent surgery in 1915.

Complications followed.

Susan La Flesche Picotte died on September 18, 1915.

She was fifty years old.

The age is striking because her achievements feel like the work of a much longer life.

She had earned a medical degree before turning twenty-four.