- Medicine - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- [Photograph of Dr. Daniel Hale WILLIAMS.]
-
- 1st heart surgeon once lived here
- The first surgeon to successfully operate on the human heart
was a Janesville barber back in the
- 1870s.
- But what really makes this story unusual is that the surgeon,
Dr. Daniel Hale WILLIAMS, was a
- black.
- WILLIAMS played bass fiddle in the Harry ANDERSON
Orchestra which played at the
- MYERS Theater as well as at dances and wedding receptions.
- WILLIAMS was born Jan. 18, 1856, in Hollidaysburg,
Pa., of German, Scotch, Indian and black
- ancestry.
- He came from a family of preachers who worked for the Equal
Rights League. His father and
- grandfather were barbers. At 17, WILLIAMS came to
Edgerton to open a barber shop.
- A few years later, he came to Janesville to work in the "tonsorial
parlor and bathing rooms" owned
- and operated by Harry ANDERSON.
- WILLIAMS boarded with the ANDERSON family.
ANDERSON was a mulatto with a white
- wife and five children, and it was ANDERSON who encouraged
WILLIAMS to study at Prof. HAIRE's Academy. There,
WILLIAMS was tutored in Latin and other subjects.
- In early 1878 he became an apprentice in the office of Dr.
Henry PALMER, where he swept the
- office, cared for the doctor's horse, and availed himself
of Dr. PALMER's medical library.
- WILLIAMS soon entered Chicago Medical College, with
the financial sport of ANDERSON.
- He graduated after working in the maternity ward of Chicago's
Mercy Hospital.
- WILLIAMS was a charter member of the American College
of Surgeons, along with the Mayo
- brothers. He was the founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago,
the first interracial hospital in the United States. WILLIAMS
introduced training of black interns and nurses.
- He became internationally famous as an American pioneer in
modern surgery and was named head
- of Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C., by President
Cleveland.
- It was in Provident Hospital in July, 1893, that Dr. Dan
operated on the heart of a deliveryman
- who had been stabbed in the heart in a saloon brawl. At the
time medical authorities warned against even opening the chest,
considering it impractical and irresponsible.
- But WILLIAMS knew that he had to try such an operation
to save the patient's life.
- Six doctors witnessed the surgery. The patient not only survived,
but lived another 20 years in
- good health. Another heart patient of WILLIAMS' lived
for 50 years.
- WILLIAMS also did Caesarean surgery, introduced methods
of saving crushed extremities, and
- held clinics throughout the nation for black nurses.
- But later in life, WILLIAMS fell upon hard times.
- Pressured by those who cited his extensive activities, WILLIAMS
was forced to resign from the
- hospital staff at Provident. Another blow was government
investigation of his administration at Freedmen's Hospital. Although
he was vindicated in the investigation of the government hospital,
WILLIAMS never fully recovered from the pressure.
- He suffered a stroke and was in retirement for five years
at his summer home in Idlewild, Mich.,
- where he died Aug. 4, 1931.
- A biography of WILLIAMS, "Dr. Dan," was
out of print for a number of years, but was reprinted
- in 1974 and is available in Janesville. It became an accepted
part of modern black study courses.
|
