Daniel H. Williams
On this date, in 1893, Black surgeon Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery in the United States.
Dr. Williams completed the operation on a young man named James Cornish. He had been rushed to Provident Hospital in Chicago, a hospital that Dr. Williams had founded and one of the few hospitals that welcomed African Americans--with a stab wound. Williams repaired the wound with the use of sutures.
Sometimes, open-heart surgery is referred to as an invasive procedure
Black First:
2,000 years of extraordinary achievement
by Jessie Carney Smith
Copyright 1994 Visible Ink Press, Detroit, MI
ISBN 0-8103-9490-1
