Daniel Hale WilliamsBorn 18 Jan 1858; died 4 Aug 1931 at age 73.American physician remembered as the first black American to suture the pericardium (the fluid sac surrounding the heart muscle). On 9 Jul 1893, he operated on a 24-yr-old stabbing victim and sutured the wound to the pericardium, but left the heart muscle itself alone, allowing a small (1/10" long) nick to heal on its own. The patient recovered and lived for at least 20 years afterward. (A similar procedure was performed earlier by H.C. Dalton on 6 Sep 1891. The first surgery on heart muscle was done on 10 Sep 1896, by Ludwig Rehn who sutured a myocardial laceration). Williams helped establish the Provident Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago (1891), the oldest free-standing black owned hospital in the U.S.« |
