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Dr. 'Daniel Hale Williams' (January 18, 1856 - August 4, 1931) was an African-American surgeon.^[1] Williams is known today for performing an early surgery on the pericardium, repairing a knife wound with the use of sutures.
Daniel Hale Williams was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, to Daniel and Sarah Price Williams. In 1883, Williams graduated from the Chicago Medical College, known today as Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and began his medical career in the office of Surgeon General Henry Palmer in Janesville, Wisconsin.
In 1893 Dr. Williams repaired the torn pericardium of James Cornish, who had suffered a knife wound to the heart. This is the second repair of a wound to the pericardium on record, the first having been performed by Dr Henry Dalton.^[2]
Even earlier successful pericardial surgeries were performed in the early 19th century by Francisco Romero, a Spanish surgeon, and Napoleon's physician, Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey.^[3]
During the administration of President Grover Cleveland, Dr. Williams was appointed as Surgeon-in-Chief of Freedman's Hospital in Washington, DC. In addition to organizing the hospital, Dr. Williams also established a training school for African-American nurses at the facility.
Dr. Williams was a teacher of Clinical Surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee and was an attending surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He worked hard to create more hospitals for African Americans. In 1895 he co-founded the National Medical Association for black doctors, and in 1913 he became a charter member and the only black in the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Williams died of a stroke on
August 4, 1931 in Idlewild, Michigan.'''
In 1898, Dr. Williams married Alice Jackson, daughter of the sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel and a maid. ^[4].

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External links

References

1. http://famous.adoption.com/famous/williams-daniel-hale.html
2.
The Evolution of Cardiac Surgery, , Harris B., Shumacker, Indiana University Press, 1992,
3. http://www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions/heartsurgery.asp
4. http://www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.9/html/396.html


★ Beatty, William K., Williams, Daniel Hale, ''American National Biography Online'' Feb. 2000.

★ Yenser, Thomas (editor), ''Who's Who in Colored America: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Living Persons of African Descent in America'', Who's Who in Colored America, Brooklyn, New York, 1930-1931-1932 (Third Edition)

★ Harlan, et al (editors), Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 9, p.396

External links

★ The Provident Foundation