Daniel Williams

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was an African American physician who made history by performing the first successful open heart surgery operation ever performed, on July 9, 1893 before such surgeries were established.
In 1913, he was the only African American member of the American College of Surgeons.

Daniel Hale Williams successfully operated on James Cornish, the victim of a knifing. The operation was considered at the time ground-breaking. The doctor opened the patient's chest revealing a beating heart to stitch a small wound in the pericardium, the sac surrounding the heart.

Daniel Hales Williams utilized many of the emerging antiseptic, sterilization procedures of the day and thereby gained a reputation for professionalism. The doctor began his medical practice in Chicago at a time when there were only three other black physicians.

Other interesting facts about Dr Daniel Hale Williams:

• In 1891, in Chicago, Daniel Hales Williams founded Provident, the first American interracial hospital.
• Provident hosted the first nursing school for blacks in America.
• The first Black physician named as a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons.

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