In a homogeneous society where there is no racial cleavage, only the
selected members of the most favored class occupy the professional
stations. The element representing the social status of the Negro would,
therefore, furnish few members of the coveted callings. The element of
race, however, complicates every feature of the social equation. In India
we are told that the population is divided horizontally by caste and
vertically by religion; but in America the race spirit serves both as
horizontal and vertical separations. The Negro is segregated and shut in
to himself in all social and semi-social relations of life. This isolation
necessitates separate ministrative agencies from the lowest to the highest
rounds of the ladder of service. During the days of slavery the interests
of the master demanded that he should direct the general social and moral
life of the slave, and should provide especially for his physical
well-being. The sudden severance of this tie left the Negro wholly without
intimate guidance and direction. The ignorant must be enlightened, the
sick must be healed, and the poor must have the gospel preached to them.
The situation and circumstances under which the race found itself demanded
that its professional class, for the most part, should be men of their
own blood and sympathies. The needed service could not be effectively
performed by those who assumed and asserted racial arrogance, and bestowed
their professional service as cold crumbs that fell from the master's
table. The professional class who are to uplift and direct the lowly must
not say, "So far shalt thou come, but not any farther," but rather, "Where
I am, there ye shall be also."
There is no more pathetic chapter in the history of human struggle than
the emergence of the smothered ambition of this race to meet the social
exigencies involved in the professional needs of the masses. In an
instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the plowhand was transformed into a
priest, the barber into a bishop, the housemaid into a schoolmistress, the
day-laborer into a lawyer, and the porter into a physician. These high
places of intellectual and professional authority, into which they found
themselves thrust by stress of social necessity, had to be operated with
at least some semblance of conformity to the standards which had been
established by the European through the traditions of the ages. The higher
place in society occupied by the choicest members of the white race, and
that too after long years of arduous preparation, had to be assumed by
black men without personal or formal fitness. The stronger and more
aggressive natures pushed themselves into these higher callings by sheer
force of untutored energy and uncontrolled ambition.
An accurate study of the healing art as practiced by Negroes in Africa as
well as its continuance after transplantation in America would form an
investigation of great historical interest. This, however, is not the
purpose of this paper. It is sufficient to note the fact that witchcraft
and the control of disease through roots, herbs, charms and conjuration are
universally practiced on the continent of Africa. Indeed, the medicine man
has a standing and influence that is sometimes superior to that of kings
and queens. The natives of Africa have discovered their own materia medica
by actual practice and experience with the medicinal value of minerals and
plants. It must be borne in mind that any pharmacopeia must rest upon the
basis of practical experiment and experience. The science of medicine was
developed by man in his groping to relieve pain and to curb disease, and
was not handed down ready made from the skies. In this groping, the
African, like the rest of the children of men, has been feeling after the
right remedies, if haply he might find them.
It was inevitable that the prevailing practice of conjuration in Africa
should be found among Negroes after they had been transferred to the new
continent. The conjure man was well known in every slave community. He
generally turned his art, however, to malevolent rather than benevolent
uses; but this was not always the case. Not infrequently these medicine men
gained such wide celebrity among their own race as to attract the attention
of the whites. As early as 1792 a Negro by the name of Cesar[1] had gained
such distinction for his curative knowledge of roots and herbs that the
Assembly of South Carolina purchased his freedom and gave him an annuity of
one hundred pounds.
That slaves not infrequently held high rank among their own race as
professional men may be seen from the advertisements of colonial days. A
runaway Negro named Simon was in 1740 advertised in _The Pennsylvania
Gazette_[2] as being able to "bleed and draw teeth" and "pretending to be
a great doctor among his people." Referring in 1797 to a fugitive slave of
Charleston, South Carolina, _The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser_[3]
said: "He passes for a Doctor among people of his color and it is supposed
practices in that capacity about town." The contact of such practitioners
with the white race was due to the fact that the profession of the barber
was at one time united with that of the physician. The practice of
phlebotomy was considered an essential part of the doctor's work. As the
Negro early became a barber and the profession was united with that of
the physician, it is natural to suppose that he too would assume the
latter function. That phlebotomy was considered an essential part of the
practice of the medicine is seen from the fact that it was practiced upon
George Washington in his last illness. An instance of this sort of
professional development among the Negroes appears in the case of the
barber, Joseph Ferguson. Prior to 1861 he lived in Richmond, Virginia,
uniting the three occupations of leecher, cupper, and barber. This led to
his taking up the study of medicine in Michigan, where he graduated and
practiced for many years.
The first regularly recognized Negro physician, of whom there is a
complete record, was James Derham, of New Orleans. He was born in
Philadelphia in 1762, where he was taught to read and write, and
instructed in the principles of Christianity. When a boy he was
transferred by his master to Dr. John Kearsley, Jr., who employed him
occasionally to compound medicines, and to perform some of the more humble
acts of attention to his patients. Upon the death of Dr. Kearsley, he
became (after passing through several hands) the property of Dr. George
West, surgeon to the Sixteenth British Regiment, under whom, during the
Revolutionary War, he performed many of the menial duties of the medical
profession. At the close of the war, he was sold by Dr. West to Dr. Robert
Dove at New Orleans, who employed him as an assistant in his business, in
which capacity he gained so much of his confidence and friendship, that
he consented to liberate him, after two or three years, upon easy terms.
From Dr. Derham's numerous opportunities of improving in medicine, he
became so well acquainted with the healing art, as to commence practicing
in New Orleans, under the patronage of his last master. He once did
business to the amount of three thousand dollars a year. Benjamin Rush,
who had the opportunity to meet him, said: "I have conversed with him upon
most of the acute and epidemic diseases of the country where he lives and
was pleased to find him perfectly acquainted with the modern simple mode
of practice on those diseases. I expected to have suggested some new
medicines to him; but he suggested many more to me. He is very modest and
engaging in his manners. He speaks French fluently and has some knowledge
of the Spanish language."[4]
The most noted colored physician after the time of James Derham was Doctor
James McCune Smith, a graduate of the University of Glasgow. He began the
practice of medicine in New York about 1837, and soon distinguished himself
as a physician and surgeon. He passed as a man of unusual merit not only
among his own people but among the best elements of that metropolis. That
he was appreciated by the leading white physicians of the city is evidenced
by the fact that in 1852 he was nominated as one of the five men to draft a
constitution for the "Statistic Institute" of which he became a leading
member. For a number of years he held the position of physician to the
colored orphan asylum, serving on the staff with a number of white doctors.
Living in a day when the Negro was the subject of much anthropological
and physiological discussion, Doctor Smith could not resist participating
in this controversy. There were at this time a number of persons who were
resorting to science to prove the inferiority of the Negro. Given a
hearing extending over several evenings, Doctor Smith ably discussed "The
Comparative Anatomy of the Races" before an assembly of the most
distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the city, triumphing over his
antagonist. In 1846 he produced a valuable work entitled "The Influence
of Climate on Longevity, with Special Reference to Insurance." This paper
was written as a refutation of a disquisition of John C. Calhoun on the
colored race. Among other things Doctor Smith said: "The reason why the
proportion of mortality is not a measure of longevity, is the following:
The proportion of mortality is a statement of how many persons die in a
population; this, of course, does not state the age at which those persons
die. If 1 in 45 die in Sweden, and 1 in 22 in Grenada, the age of the dead
might be alike in both countries; here the greater mortality might
actually accompany the greater longevity."[5]
The first real impetus to bring Negroes in considerable numbers into the
professional world came from the American Colonization Society, which in
the early years flourished in the South as well as in the North. This
organization hoped to return the free Negroes to Africa and undertook to
prepare professional leaders of their race for the Liberian colony. "To
execute this scheme, leaders of the colonization movement endeavored to
educate Negroes in mechanic arts, agriculture, science and Biblical
literature. Exceptionally bright youths were to be given special training
as catechists, teachers, preachers and physicians. Not much was said about
what they were doing, but now and then appeared notices of Negroes who had
been prepared privately in the South or publicly in the North for service
in Liberia. Dr. William Taylor and Dr. Fleet were thus educated in the
District of Columbia. In the same way John V. DeGrasse, of New York, and
Thomas J. White, of Brooklyn, were allowed to complete the medical course
at Bowdoin in 1849. In 1854 Dr. DeGrasse was admitted as a member of the
Massachusetts Medical Society. In 1858 the Berkshire Medical School
graduated two colored doctors who were gratuitously educated by the
American Educational Society."[6] Dr. A. T. Augusta studied medicine at the
University of Toronto. He qualified by competitive examination and obtained
the position of surgeon in the United States Army, being the first Negro to
hold such a position. After the war he became one of the leading colored
physicians in the District of Columbia. Prior to 1861 Negroes had taken
courses at the Medical School of the University of New York; Caselton
Medical School in Vermont; Berkshire Medical School in Pittsfield,
Massachusetts; the Rush Medical School in Chicago; the Eclectic Medical
School in Philadelphia; the Homeopathic College of Cleveland; and the
Medical School of Harvard University.
The next colored physician of prominence was Martin R. Delany. Delany grew
to manhood in Pittsburgh, where early in his career he began the study
of medicine, but abandoned it for pursuits in other parts. In 1849 he
returned to that city and resumed his studies under Doctors Joseph P.
Gazzan and Francis J. Lemoyne, who secured for him admission to the
medical department of Harvard College after he had been refused by the
University Pennsylvania, Jefferson College, and the medical colleges of
Albany and Geneva, New York. After leaving Harvard, he, like Dr. Smith,
became interested in the discussion of the superiority and inferiority of
races, and traveled extensively through the West, lecturing with some
success on the physiological aspect of these subjects. He then returned to
Pittsburgh, where he became a practitioner and distinguished himself in
treating the cholera during the epidemic of 1854. About this time his
worth to the community was attested by his appointment as a member of the
Subcommittee of Referees who furnished the Municipal Board of Charity with
medical advice as to the needs of white and colored persons desiring aid.
In 1856 he removed to Chatham, Canada, where he practiced medicine a
number of years. Doctor Delany thereafter like William Wells Brown, an
occasional physician, devoted most of his time to the uplift of his
people, traveling in America, Africa and England. He became such a worker
among his people that he was known as a leader rather than a physician. He
served in the Civil War as a commissioned officer of the United States
Army, ranking as major.
Up to this point the colored physician had appeared as an occasional or
exceptional individual, but hardly as forming a professional class.
Following the wake of the Civil War colleges and universities were planted
in all parts of the South for the sake of preparing leaders for the newly
emancipated race. Several medical schools were established in connection
with these institutions. The rise of the Negro physician as a professional
class may be dated from the establishment of these institutions. The School
of Medicine of Howard University, Washington, D.C., and the Meharry Medical
College at Nashville, Tennessee, proved to be the strongest of these
institutions and today are supplying the Negro medical profession with a
large number of its annual recruits.
Dr. Charles B. Purvis, who was graduated from the Medical College of
Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1865, is perhaps the
oldest colored physician in the United States; and by general consent ranks
as dean of the fraternity. He shared with Dr. A. T. Augusta the honor of
being one of the few colored men to become surgeons in the United States
Army. Shortly after graduation he was made assistant surgeon in the
Freedmen's Hospital at Washington, D.C., with which institution he was
connected during the entire period of his active professional life. The
development and present position of the medical school at Howard University
is due to Dr. Purvis more than to any other single individual. For several
years he has been retired upon the Carnegie Foundation. Dr. George W.
Hubbard, a distinguished white physician, dean of the Meharry Medical
College, Nashville, Tennessee, has also been a great pioneer and promoter
of the medical education of the Negro race.
At first, the Negro patient refused to put confidence in the physician of
his own race, notwithstanding the closer intimacy of social contact. It
was not until after he had demonstrated his competency to treat disease
as well as his white competitor that he was able to win recognition among
his own people. The colored physician is everywhere in open competition
with the white practitioner, who never refuses to treat Negro patients,
if allowed to assume the disdainful attitude of racial superiority. If
the Negro doctor did not secure practically as good results in the
treatment of disease as the white physician, he would soon find himself
without patients.
According to the last census there were in the United States 3,077 Negro
physicians and 478 Negro dentists. When we consider the professional needs
of ten millions of Negroes, it will be seen that the quota is not over one
fourth full. There is urgent need especially for an additional number of
pharmacists and dentists. It must be said for the Negro physician that
their membership more fully measures up to the full status of a
professional class than that of any other profession among colored men.
Every member of the profession must have a stated medical education based
upon considerable academic preparation, sufficient to enable them to pass
the rigid tests of State Boards in various parts of the country. The best
regulated medical schools are now requiring at least two years of college
training as a basis for entering upon the study of medicine. Under the
stimulus of these higher standards the Negro medical profession will become
more thoroughly equipped and proficient in the years to come.
These physicians maintain a national medical association which meets
annually in different parts of the country and prepare and discuss papers
bearing upon the various phases of their profession. There are under the
control of Negro physicians a number of hospitals where are performed
operations verging upon the limits of surgical skill. The profession has
developed not a few physicians and surgeons whose ability has won
recognition throughout their profession. A number of them have performed
operations which have attracted wide attention and have contributed to
leading journals discussions dealing with the various forms and phases of
disease, as well as their medical and surgical treatment.
By reason of the stratum which the Negro occupies, the race is an easy prey
to disease that affects the health of the whole nation. The germs of
disease have no race prejudice. They do not even draw the line at social
equality, but gnaw with equal avidity at the vitals of white and black
alike, and pass with the greatest freedom of intercourse from the one to
the other. One touch of disease makes the whole world kin, and also kind.
The Negro physician comes into immediate contact with the masses of his
race; he is the missionary of good health. His ministration is not only to
his own race, but to the community and to the nation as a whole. The white
plague seems to love the black victim. This disease must be stamped out by
the nation through concerted action. The Negro physician is one of the most
efficient agencies to render this national service. During the entire
history of the race on this continent, there has been no more striking
indication of its capacity for self-reclamation and of its ability to
maintain a professional class on the basis of scientific efficiency than
the rise and success of the Negro physician.