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Daniel Hale Williams, Surgeon born

Daniel H. Williams

Daniel Hale Williams was born on this date in 1858. He was a Black physician and surgeon.

Born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, Williams worked as a barber and bass violinist at Janesville Classical Academy. In 1893, he received a medical degree from Chicago Medical College, now part of Northwestern University. While still a medical student, Williams founded Provident Hospital, the first Chicago hospital with Blacks on staff.

In 1893, a man was brought to Provident Hospital with a deep knife wound in his chest. Williams opened the man’s chest and observed that the knife had punctured the sac surrounding the heart. He repaired the tear and closed the chest. The patient recovered fully and was the first successful open-heart surgery in America.

Daniel Hale Williams was appointed to Chicago’s St. Luke’s Hospital staff in 1907, where he continued to practice surgery until his death. When the American College of Surgeons was founded in 1913, he became a charter member, and the first Black surgeon admitted to that organization.

Daniel Williams, African America's first Black cardiologist, died on August 4, 1931, in Idlewild, Michigan.

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