Right now, it's time for our way Black History Fact. In Today's way, Black History Fact is sponsored by Major Threads. For innovative, fashionable sportswear, check major threads dot com. Today, we're going to talk about doctor Daniel Hill Williams, who has an inspiring story. He was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, on January eighteenth, eighteen fifty six. Daniel was the eldest son of eight children. Around the age of ten, his
father died of tuberculosis. The family moved to Baltimore, Maryland to live with relatives. Daniel became a shoemaker apprentice, and he disliked the work and returned to his family's barbering business. Ultimately, Daniel decided to pursue his education. He worked as an apprentice with doctor Henry Palmer, who was considered a highly accomplished surgeon. Daniel graduated with an MD degree in eighteen
eighty three at Chicago Medical College. Doctor Williams practiced medicine in Chicago at a time when there were only three other black physicians in Chicago. He also worked with the Equal Rights League, a black civil rights organization active during the Reconstruction era. Considered a thoughtful and skilled surgeon. Doctor Williams's practice grew as he treated both black and white patients.
In eighteen eighty nine, he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health now known as the Illinois Department of Public Health and worked with medical standards and hospital rules. Doctor Williams practiced during an era when racism and discrimination prohibited African Americans from being admitted to hospitals and denied
the black doctor's employment on hospital staff. To counteract this practice, doctor Williams founded the Provident Hospital and Training School for Nurses now called Provident Hospital of Cook County in Chicago. This emerged as the first hospital in the country with a nursing and intern program that hired African Americans. This hospital had the distinction of being the first medical facility
to have an interracial staff. In eighteen ninety three, doctor Williams became the first surgeon to perform open heart surgery on a human. Well that's why we're talking about him today. As a black man, Doctor Williams performed the nation's first open heart surgery at the Provident Hospital in the summer of eighteen ninety three. The operation was done without X rays, antibiotics,
surgical prep work or tools of modern surgery. Doctor Williams's skill placed him and Provident Hospital at the forefront of one of Chicago's medical milestones. His patient, James Cornish, survived he was discharged fifty one days after his remarkable surgery. He was considered a pioneering heart surgeon during a time when technological discoveries were revolutionizing the practice of medicine. In eighteen ninety four, doctor Williams moved to Washington, d c.
Whereas chief surgeon of the Freedom Freedman's Hospital. He continued his assault on health disparities by encouraging the employment of a multi racial staff and promoting the use the advancement of surgical procedures. In eighteen ninety five, he co founded the National Medical Association, a professional organization for black medical practitioners. This organization was instituted as an alternative to the all White Medical Association that did not extend membership to black doctors.
When doctor Williams left the Freedman's Hospital in eighteen ninety eight, he returned to Providence. He later moved to Cook County Hospital and then to the larger Saint Luke's. He worked at Maharry Medical College for about twenty years, beginning in eighteen ninety nine, and in nineteen thirteen he became a charter member of the American College of Surgeon. Doctor Daniel Hell Williams experienced a stroke and died five years later in nineteen thirty one. So kind of a neat story there.
You know, we have a problem with heart disease, and you know all that sort of stuff in this country. And now you know that the first successful open heart surgery was performed by a black doctor who was discriminated against.