Celebrating History of Cultural Diversity at Northwestern University Medical School

Historical Notes: Cultural Diversity at Northwestern University Medical School

Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian, Northwestern University, Galter Health Sciences Library, Special Collections, has compiled a tribute to a few of Northwestern University Medical School's illustrious alumni.

Celebrating Cultural Diversity at the Medical School

http://www.galter.northwestern.edu/news/index.cfm/2012/2/10/Celebrating-Cultural-Diversity-at-the-Medical-School

In celebration of Black History Month, Ron Sims has written biographies for three alumni in which he reveals their lives before medical school and their fascinating careers after receiving their medical degrees.

U. G. Dailey in his class photo, 1906

-Ulysses Grant Dailey, MD, ScD, LLD, FACS, FICS, class of 1906

-Theodore Kenneth Lawless, MD, class of 1919

-Alfred Bitini Xuma, MD, PhD, class of 1926

Please see last year's impressive roster, also from Ron Sims:

Celebrating African-American Graduates of the Medical School

 

http://www.galter.northwestern.edu/news/index.cfm/2011/2/7/Celebrating-AfricanAmerican-Graduates-of-the-Medical-School

This entry from 2011 features the following alumni from the late 19th century, including superstar surgeon, Daniel Hale Williams, MD:

-Daniel Hale Williams, MD, class of 1883

-Allen Alexander Wesley, MD, class of 1887

-Austin Maurice Curtis, MD, class of 1891

How is your Chicago medical institution celebrating diversity this Black History Month? Contact the CAMA blog!

John Benjamin Murphy, 1857-1916

CAMA Historical Facilities/Figures Project

Murphy conducts a surgical clinic at Mercy Hospital, 1902

The Chicago Area Medical Archivists member institutions often house material related to the same individuals. Some of Chicago's most innovative physicians and surgeons belonged to the staffs and faculties of several Chicago hospitals and medical schools and were members and presidents of Chicago-based professional organizations. 

One such individual was surgeon John Benjamin Murphy, MD, LLD, MSc, who graduated from Rush Medical College in 1879. He went on to serve on the faculties of Rush Medical College, the College of Physicians and Surgeons (now the University of Illinois College of Medicine), and Northwestern University Medical School. He served some time on the staff of Cook County Hospital and was chief of surgery of Mercy Hospital from 1895 until his death in 1916. He served as president of both the Chicago Medical Society and the American Medical Association and was involved in the development of the American College of Surgeons, all of which are headquartered in Chicago.

Rush Medical College class composite, 1907

 

To learn more about Murphy's life and achievements, please read "An American Original: John Benjamin Murphy, MD" by Ron Sims, Special Collections Librarian at the Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.  

Their collection includes some wonderful items recently donated by Murphy's great-granddaughter, Barbara Miller.

http://www.galter.northwestern.edu/news/index.cfm/2011/4/7/An-American-Original-John-Benjamin-Murphy-MD

[1902 Clinic Image Credit: Special Collections, Galter Health Sciences Library, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine]

[1907 Murphy Image Credit: Rush University Medical Center Archives]

Isabella C. Herb, 1869-1943

CAMA Historical Figures/Facilities Project

Anesthesiologist and instructor Isabella C. Herb was born in Clyman, Wisc., on 5 November 1869. She married Charles Albert Herb but after only a few years of marriage, he was killed in an accident in 1888. Herb obtained her medical degree from Woman’s Medical College of Northwestern University in 1892. She completed a year internship at the Mary Thompson Hospital for Women and Children in Chicago and was Assistant to the Medical Staff until 1894, as well as working as their Dispensary Physician and Superintendent. In 1897, she practiced as an anesthetist and pathologist in Augustana Hospital in Chicago. There she worked with Lawrence Prince, M.D., the major developer of open drop ether and chloroform anesthesia. 

 The story continues after the jump...

Caption: "Isabella Herb, M.D., chief anesthetist at Presbyterian Hospital, demonstrates ethylene-oxygen equipment to (center and right) Jay Bailey Carter, M.D. and Arno B. Luckhardt, M.D. Dr. Luckhardt discovered the anesthetic property of ethylene gas with the assistance of Dr. Carter, who had volunteered to be the first human subject for his experiments. An actual patient would be lying down when the anesthesia is administered." Image Call Number: P5236. From the Rush University Medical Center Archives.

James Bryan Herrick, 1861-1954

CAMA Historical Figures/Facilities Project

James Herrick, 1925.

Cardiologist James B. Herrick was born in 1861 in Oak Park, Ill. He received his A.B. from the University of Michigan and taught school in Peoria and Oak Park before beginning his medical education at Rush Medical College. He received his M.D. in 1888. Upon graduation, he served an internship at the Cook County Hospital, followed by private practice in Chicago and teaching at the Rush Medical College. Herrick believed that the teaching of medicine should not be confined to didactic lessons in the classroom and often taught by example in a clinical setting. He traveled to Europe on several occasions to further his own education.

[Image Credit: Rush University Medical Center Archives, Photograph Collection, P2332b.]

Frank Billings, 1854-1932

CAMA Historical Figures/Facilities Project

Frank Billings, circa 1905.

Physician Frank Billings was born in Wisconsin, 2 April 1854. Upon completing high school, he taught in the Wisconsin schools from 1874 to 1876. In 1881, he received his medical degree from Northwestern University. He continued his medical studies in Vienna, Paris, and London, 1885-1886. Billings was an attending physician at Mercy Hospital, 1890-1898; St. Luke’s Hospital, 1890-1906; Cook County Hospital, 1890-1901;  and Presbyterian Hospital, 1898-1920. He served as Dean of Rush Medical College, 1900-1920. He introduced residents and the clerkship system to Presbyterian Hospital. 

[Image Credit: From the Rush University Medical Center Archives, Photograph Collection, #046]

Franklin Henry Martin, 1857-1935

CAMA Historical Figures/Facilities Project

Franklin H. Martin in Uniform at His Desk, 1918.   

Image courtesy of the 

American College of Surgeons Archives,

Visual Materials Collection #101

Franklin H. Martin, born in Ixonia, Wisconsin, in 1857, attended Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. He served as an intern at Mercy Hospital from 1880 to 1881. He was on the staff of the South Side Dispensary (1883-1888) and was Professor of Gynecology at the Policlinic of Chicago (1886-1888). Beginning in 1887, he was for many years a gynecologist at the Women’s Hospital of Chicago. Also in 1887, he organized the Charity Hospital of Chicago. In 1888, with Dr. W. F. Coleman, he organized the Post-Graduate Medical School of Chicago.

Ludvig Hektoen, 1884-1951

CAMA Historical Figures/Facilities Project

Ludvig Hektoen, 19 February 1919

Image courtesy of UIC Library of the Health Sciences

Special Collections and University Archives

Ludvig Hektoen Papers, 1884-1952

Pathologist, professor, and researcher Ludvig Hektoen, 1863-1951, was born in Westby, Wisc. He attended medical school at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and graduated in 1887 as valedictorian of his class. He served as an intern at Cook County Hospital for a year, then held various positions until his appointment as professor of pathology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1892 to 1894. He was professor of pathology at Rush Medical College from 1895 until 1933, and was professor and head of the department of pathology at the University of Chicago from 1901 until 1932.

Arthur Dean Bevan, 1861-1943

CAMA Historical Figures/Facilities Project

Arthur Dean Bevan, 1930
From the RG44000 Photograph Collection
Rush University Medical Center Archives, Chicago, Ill.

Surgeon Arthur Dean Bevan was born in Chicago, Ill., 1861. Bevan graduated from Rush Medical College in 1883. He became a professor of anatomy at Rush Medical College, 1887; associate professor of surgery, 1889; and professor of surgery, 1902. He succeeded Nicholas Senn as head of the surgical department at Rush and Presbyterian Hospital in 1907. He held these positions until his retirement from medicine in 1934.  Bevan held many positions in several medical organizations. From 1904 through 1928, he was chairman of the American Medical Association's Council on Medical Education. Through his leadership the council did much to standardize medical education in the country. Bevan wrote a number of professional papers on a wide range of surgical procedures, medical education, anesthesiology, and prohibition. He was the first surgeon to use ethylene-oxygen clinically as an anesthesia, 14 March 1923. Bevan died 10 June 1943.