Cobb, W. Montague

October 12, 1904
November 20, 1990

William Montague Cobb, a physician, was born in Washington, D.C., the son of William Elmer and Alexzine Montague Cobb. A graduate of Dunbar High School (1921), he pursued a liberal-arts program at Amherst College and earned an A.B. there in 1925. Cobb's special talent for science earned him the Blodgett Scholarship for work at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where he studied embryology in the summer of 1925. He entered Howard University Medical College that fall, earning an M.D. in 1929.

During his final year at Howard, Cobb taught embryology to medical students. This was the start of a lifelong career in teaching and research. Following a year's internship at Freedmen's Hospital, he enrolled in the doctoral program at Western Reserve University and was awarded a Ph.D. in anatomy and physical anthropology in 1932.

Cobb taught anatomy at Howard University for forty-one years. Starting as an assistant professor in 1932, he attained the rank of full professor in 1942. He served as chairman of the Department of Anatomy from 1947 to 1969. In 1969 he became the first to hold a distinguished professorship at Howard. Following his official retirement in 1973, he served as visiting professor at several institutions, including Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and Harvard University.

Cobb's research interests were wide-ranging. He contributed the chapter on the skeleton to the third edition (1952) of E. V. Cowdry's Problems of Aging: Biological and Medical Aspects. Other work of his was cited in Gray's Anatomy, Sir Henry Morris's Human Anatomy, and Cunningham's Manual of Practical Anatomy. He is said to have been the first black scientist cited in all three of these standard medical texts. Cobb's work on the "physical anthropology of the American Negro," published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and other periodicals, was recognized as authoritative.

Along with Julian H. Lewis, Cobb pioneered efforts to counteract the myths that had evolved among scientists concerning the biological inferiority of black people. In all, he published over six hundred articles in professional journals. His prominence brought him terms as president of the Anthropological Society of Washington (1949–1951) and of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (1958–1960), at a time when it was almost unheard of for an African American to hold such posts within predominantly white organizations.

Cobb is perhaps best remembered, both within the medical community and beyond, for his civil rights activities. During the 1940s he represented the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) before the U.S. Senate in testimony supportive of a national health-insurance program. Under the auspices of the NAACP he prepared two seminal monographs, Medical Care and the Plight of the Negro (1947) and Progress and Portents for the Negro in Medicine (1948), which helped raise public awareness of how discriminatory practices had adversely influenced the access of blacks to health-care services and professional opportunities. Cobb served as NAACP president from 1976 to 1982.

In his capacity as president (1945–1947, 1951–1954) of the all-black Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia, Cobb led two important campaigns: the racial integration of Gallinger Hospital (later, D.C. General Hospital) in 1948 and the admission, in 1952, of black physicians to membership in the all-white Medical Society of the District of Columbia. He also served a term as president of the National Medical Association in 1964. It was in his role, however, as editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association (1949–1977) that he found his primary forum, both for discussing contemporary issues of health-care access and for portraying the rich historical heritage to which blacks—going back beyond colonial America to prehistoric times—can lay claim.

See also Freedmen's Hospital; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Bibliography

Cobb, W. Montague. The First Negro Medical Society: A History of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C.: Associated Publishers, 1939.

Lawlah, John W. "The President-Elect." Journal of the National Medical Association 55 (November 1963): 551–554.

kenneth r. manning (1996)