DIVERSITY IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION: AFRICAN AMERICAN PHYSICIANS

Pioneering Physicians

The first black physician in the United States is generally considered to be James Derham, who was born a slave in Philadelphia in 1762. Derham learned medicine under his owner, prominent physician Dr. James Kearsley Jr. At the close of the Revolutionary War Derham was sold to Dr. Robert Dove of New Orleans and continued his apprenticeship. Derham apparently developed a lucrative practice in that city. In 1837 James Smith became the first black American physician to obtain a medical degree, which he received from the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Ten years later David Smith became the first black U.S. medical school graduate when he finished at Rush Medical College in Chicago. Until the end of the Civil War most blacks in the United States were slaves. However, several hundred thousand, mostly in the northeastern states, were free and could obtain an education. Thus, several black males obtained medical degrees in the United States before the war. In 1864 Rebecca Lee became the first black female to receive such a degree when she graduated from the New England Female Medical College (now Boston University School of Medicine).

Medical Education

After 1865 several for-profit and religious medical schools were opened to serve the former slaves from the South. The earliest of these institutions was Howard University in Washington, D.C., which first accepted students in 1869. By 1900 a dozen other such colleges were operating in Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Most black physicians in practice in the United States before 1920 graduated from one of these schools. Only four survived until 1910, and only Howard and Meharry Medical College in Nashville (opened in 1876) remain in existence today. In 1895 black physicians founded a professional organization, the National Medical Association. Both the group and its journal continue to flourish.

Individual Achievements

Despite being confined primarily to segregated institutions and medical schools, black physicians during the first decade of this century have an impressive record of achievement. The black hospital movement that lasted for several decades gained its initial momentum during this period. These facilities were needed to offer care to black patients who would not be admitted to white hospitals. Dr. Aaron M. Moore raised funds among whites to open Lincoln Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, in 1901. Six years later Dr. Eugene T. Hinson and Algernon Brashear founded Mercy Hospital, the second oldest black facility in Philadelphia. From 1899 to 1901 Dr. Alonzo C. McClennan edited one of the earliest black medical publications in Charleston, South Carolina, the monthly Hospital Herald. In 1908 Drs. John A. Kenney and Charles V. Roman founded the Journal of the National Medical Association. Chicago surgeon Dr. Daniel H. Williams developed in 1904 a suturing (stitching) method for ruptured spleens. Many physicians also began long careers of service to their local black communities, including Dr. George C. Hall in Chicago (1900-1930) and Dr. Benjamin J. Covington in Houston (1903-1961).

After 1909

In the 1890s a young black doctor in Kentucky observed that "As a physician I am well received by my white professional brother. We ride in the same buggy, consult together, and read each other's books. I have a few white patients, but most of them are colored." This cordial segregation continued throughout most of this century for black physicians. Blacks were not admitted to many medical schools until well after World War II, and their numbers remain small at many institutions. Just before and after 1900 blacks had to create their own medical institutions—schools, local and national associations, hospitals, and journals. The need for this separate system has only in recent years begun to dissipate.

Sources:

M. O. Bousfield, "An Account of Physicians of Color in the United States," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 17 (January 1945): 61 84;

Todd L. Savitt, "Entering a White Profession: Black Physicians in the New South, 1880-1920," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 61 (Winter 1987): 507-540.