Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

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Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

• 1856-1931

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Daniel Hale Williams

• In 1893 Dr. Williams performed the first
  successful heart operation on a man named James
  Cornish
• The operation was performed at Chicagos
  Provident Hospital
• Dr. Williams performed what many believed was a
  medical miracle, he actually sewed up a torn heart

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania on January
  18, 1856
• He went to work at the age of 12 as an apprentice
  to a shoemaker
• Over the next few years he worked various jobs
  always hoping that he could return to school
  someday

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Daniel Hale Williams

• At 16, he graduated from Haires Classical
  Academy in Wisconsin and became an apprentice to
  Dr. Henry Palmer
• He entered Chicago Medical College and graduated
  in only 3 years
• He set up practice in Chicago and joined the
  surgical staff at the South Side Dispensary

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Daniel Hale Williams

• He became an instructor at Chicago Medical
  College and in 1889 was appointed to the Illinois
  State Board of Health
• Dr. Williams was concerned that there was no
  hospital for blacks in Chicago, he established
  the Provident Hospital for blacks in 1891
• It provided hospital care for everyone and
  training for black physicians and nurses

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Daniel Hale Williams

• The operation of Cornishs heart made news of all
  around the world
• President Grover Cleveland heard about the
  surgery and asked Dr. Williams to become chief
  surgeon at Freedmans Hospital in Washington D.C.
• Dr. Williams created a training program for black
  nurses and doctors

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Daniel Hale Williams

• During the Spanish-American War, Dr. Williams
  evaluated and selected surgeons for military
  service
• After the war, he resumed his research and
  lectured on the need for expanded medical
  facilities for blacks
• He finally retired in 1926, by that time, he was
  able to establish at least forty hospitals
  primarily serving black patients

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Dr. Williams contributed enormously to the
  development of surgical theory and practice
• He also greatly expanded medical care and career
  opportunities for black people
• He challenged integrations and preached self-help

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Many people in Chicago called his dream of a
  black hospital a reinforcement of segregation, he
  won enough community support to open a facility
• Provident Hospital and Training School was a 13
  bed hospital made from a two story frame house
  which opened May 4, 1891

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Daniel Hale Williams

• On July 9, 1893 Medical history was made when a
  young black laborer was stabbed in a nearby bar
• The X-ray was not invented yet and chest surgery
  seemed too risky, penicillin had not been
  discovered, blood transfusion techniques were
  non-existent and anesthesia was untested

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Dr. Williams took the risk, he made his way
  through the network of cartilage, nerves and
  blood vessels
• He sewed up the torn edges of the pericardium,
  the fibrous sac that protects the heart and
  allows it to beat without rubbing against other
  parts of the body.

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Daniel Hale Williams

• A small wound in the heart itself was left
  undisturbed
• James Cornish recovered and was dismissed from
  Provident 51 days later

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Dr. Berry who was in Norfolk, VA at the time and
  a junior in high school while hearing about the
  operation got inspired by Dr. Williams
• The man did much more than suture of the heart.
  He opened the door for the development of modern
  surgery.-Dr. Berry

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Dr. Berry believes too few black doctors today
  appreciate Dr. Williams contributions to
  medicine
• These young doctors dont even know to the
  extent they get integration, they dont have an
  interest in what happened yesterday.-Dr. Berry
• Dr. Berry says that these young black doctors
  need to educate themselves on their history

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Daniel Hale Williams

• Dr. Williams had two main interests the NAACP
  and the construction of hospitals and training
  schools for African-American doctors and nurses
• Dr. Williams served as a professor of clinical
  surgery at Meharry Medical College, in Nashville,
  Tennessee

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Accomplishments

• Williams paved the way in the face of adversity
• In his death, he is remembered for the founding
  of Provident Hospital in Chicago
• Serving as Surgeon-in-Chief at Freedoms Hospital
  in Washington D.C.
• Performing the first successful open-heart surgery