Open Heart Surgery

Daniel Hale Williams

A widely noted open heart surgery was performed on July 9th in 1893. Daniel Hale Williams, an African-American surgeon, founded Provident Hospital in Chicago, which is where this medical breakthrough took place. The facility was the first unsegregated hospital in America, and Williams became the first doctor to perform the complete surgery in the United States, although Henry Dalton of Missouri had done a pericardial sac repair in 1891. Williams helped set the standard that was to save many lives.

Provident Hospital today (photo by Zol87)

The patient, James Cornish, had been stabbed through the left fifth costal cartilage. The emergency surgery was done without a blood transfusion, anesthesia, or penicillin to fight infection. Cornish stayed in the hospital almost fifty days to recover and then left. He lived for another twenty years.

Williams also established the first nursing school for African-Americans associated with a hospital. When he graduated from medical school, he opened a private practice where he treated both white and black patients. However, at that time, no black doctor was allowed to practice at a hospital. That's why he opened Provident Hospital. In 1913, he was elected as the only African-American charter member of the American College of Surgeons. This ground-breaking doctor is an important part of American history.

____________________________