Black History Month: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was a medical trailblazer whose life and legacy revolutionized healthcare practices while simultaneously breaking down racial barriers. Born January 18th, 1858 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, Daniel was the fifth of the Williams family’s seven children. He took up shoemaking at an early age but his true ambitions lay elsewhere. After apprenticing for a former surgeon general, he went on to study medicine from Chicago Medical College, graduating in 1883.
In response to the lack of African American representation within the medical community, Dr. Williams sought to establish a hospital open to all races in terms of both practitioners and patients! Thus, on May 4, 1891, Dr. Williams founded Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses which became the nation’s first interracial hospital where Black and white doctors as well as nurses could study and train.
His contributions to the medical field did not end here. In 1893 a patient arrived with a stab wound to the chest in dire need of surgery. At this time, many medical professionals argued that surgery on the heart was much too risky. Without the use of blood transfusion or modern anesthetics and antibiotics, Dr. Williams opened the patient’s thoracic cavity where he was able to examine the heart, suture the wound to the pericardium, and close the palpitating wound inspected the wound and devised his plan of action sans blood transfusion.
Cutting a trapdoor to the heart through the rib cartilage, he noticed a damaged left internal mammary artery which he was able to suture. He then discovered a gash in the right coronary artery. He rinsed the wound with a salt solution and using forceps to hold the edges of the palpitating wound together, he sewed it shut. The man walked out of the hospital 51 days later where he went on to live for another 20 years earning Dr. Williams the title as the first doctor to successfully perform open-heart surgery.
References
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/daniel-hale-williams-and-first-successful-heart-surgery
About The Author
Valentina is a 4th year Concurrent Education student at Queen’s, majoring in history. She is very passionate about the arts and enjoys drawing and painting in her free time.