Black History Medical pioneers

BLACK HEALTHCARE PIONEERS

BY DON RAUF

This year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), the organization that founded Black History Month, is pressing the importance of health and wellness in Black communities. In unity, “ONYX Magazine” presents these clinicians, researchers, and advocates who have championed and advanced medicine in this country and beyond. They are just a few Black pioneers who have changed the healthcare landscape.

JAMES MCCUNE SMITH

Born into slavery in New York City in 1813, as a young man, James McCune Smith was denied admission to American colleges because he was Black, but he was able to attend the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he earned his bachelor’s, master’s, and medical degrees by age 24. Dr. Smith had a keen interest in languages, mastering Latin, Greek, and French, and developed a working knowledge of Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and German. When he returned to New York City in 1837, he established his own medical office and pharmacy at 93 West Broadway—making him the first African American doctor with his own practice in the United States. As a physician, he treated both Black and White patients, and also served as the chief doctor at the New York City Colored Orphan Asylum.

REBECCA LEE CRUMPLER

When Rebecca Lee Crumpler graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864, she became the first Black female physician in the United States. That same year, she opened a medical practice in Boston. She wrote in her “Book of Medical Discourses,” published in 1883, that she “sought every opportunity to relieve the suffering of others.” The book was one of the first publications about medicine written by an African American.

SOLOMON CARTER FULLER

Solomon Carter Fuller’s grandparents were medical missionaries in Liberia, and he grew up with a strong interest in medicine. After earning his medical degree in 1897 from Boston University, he became the first African American psychiatrist. In 1904, he began pioneering work with the psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer in Germany, studying the traits of dementia. Dr. Fuller was the first to translate much of Alzheimer’s work into English, including research regarding Auguste Deter, the person with the first reported case of the disease. When he returned to the United States, Fuller continued research on Alzheimer’s disease, as well as schizophrenia, depression, and other mental illness. In 1912, he published the first comprehensive review of Alzheimer’s cases.

JANE COOKE WRIGHT

After earning her medical degree, Dr. Jane Cooke Wright worked alongside her father, Dr. Louis Wright, at the Cancer Research Foundation in Harlem, which he established in 1948. Dr. Louis Wright was the first Black doctor appointed to a staff position at a municipal hospital in New York City, and in 1929, the city hired him as police surgeon—the first African American to hold that position. Together, father and daughter researched chemotherapy drugs that led to remissions in patients with leukemia and lymphoma. In 1952, when her father died of tuberculosis, Wright became the head of the Cancer Research Foundation at age 33. She created an innovative technique to test the effect of drugs on cancer cells by using patient tissue rather than laboratory mice. The New York Cancer Society elected Wright as its first woman president in 1971. Her research helped transform chemotherapy from a last resort to a viable treatment for cancer.

MICHELLE OBAMA

As the first Black First Lady (2009–2017) of the United States, Michelle Obama devoted much of her energy to promoting physical health. She brought attention to the childhood obesity epidemic with her Let’s Move initiative, which encouraged young people to exercise and eat nutritious food. When Obama launched the program in 2010, she said, “The physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake.” Obama also worked to increase access to healthier food and improve food labeling.