People, Locations, Episodes

Willliam W. Cardozo, Sickle Cell Researcher born

*William Warrick Cardozo was born on this date in 1905. He was a Black physician and pediatrician.

From Washington, D.C., Cardozo attended the public schools in his hometown. His father was Frederick Lewis Cardozo, and his mother was Blanche Warrick.  He attended Hampton Institute and went to Ohio State University, where he received his AB in 1929 and MD in 1933. He interned at City Hospital and took a two-year fellowship at Children’s Hospital and Provident Hospital in Chicago. He is best remembered for his pioneering investigations into sickle cell anemia.

Cardozo’s groundbreaking paper, “Immunologic Studies of Sickle Cell Anemia,” appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine in October 1937. That same year, he left the Midwest to begin a private practice and join Freedmen’s Hospital and the Howard University College of Medicine. Cardozo worked for 26 years as a school medical inspector for the District of Columbia Board of Health. He would later be promoted to clinical assistant professor and associate professor of pediatrics. In addition to his work on sickle cell anemia, Cardozo studied and published research on children’s gastrointestinal disorders, Hodgkin's disease, and the early growth and development of Black children.

He also served as a medical inspector for the District of Columbia Board of Health for twenty-four years. William Warrick Cardozo died suddenly in Washington, D.C., on August 11, 1962, after suffering a massive heart attack.

To become a Doctor