Daniel Hale Williams was the first doctor to perform open heart surgery successfully – a major achievement in itself, but when you consider the type of medical training offered to African Americans at that time – his achievement was colossal!

Daniel Williams was born on January 18th 1856, in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Daniel’s father was a barber and his trade moved the family to Maryland. Shortly after the move, when Daniel was just eleven years old, his father died from tuberculosis. It was a sad time for Daniel and his family and his mother realised she couldn’t look after her seven children so she sent some of Daniel’s brothers and sisters to live with relatives. Daniel moved to Baltimore where he became a shoemaker’s apprentice.



Bored with shoemaking, Daniel moved to Edgerton, Wisconsin, and became a very successful barber. Later, he moved to nearby Janesville, and lived with a family whilst working in their barber-shop. In 1878, Daniel turned to the medical profession and worked as an apprentice to Dr Henry Palmer for two years. Inspired by Dr Palmer, Williams decided he wanted to become a doctor, so he studied at Chicago Medical School, Illinois, where three years later he received a medical degree.

Dr Daniel Williams practised in Chicago, at a time when there were only three other African Americans practising medicine. He practised surgery, medicine and served at Chicago Medical School as an Anatomy Instructor. He had to treat many of his patients in their own homes, sometimes operating on them on their kitchen tables!



As time passed by, Daniel became a skilled surgeon but he was always aware of the limited opportunities available to black doctors. Not only that, he was also aware of the inferior way black patients were treated inside hospitals. The final straw came when he was approached by a woman who had been refused entry into nursing schools because of the colour of her skin, so he set about opening up his own hospital.

On 4th May 1891, Provident Hospital opened its doors. A three-storey building with twelve beds, the hospital was a first in many ways:


Out of the 189 patients treated in the Provident’s first year of opening, 141 made a complete recovery. The success of the hospital was mainly due to Williams’ insistence on high sanitation standards. He also made sure that his staff were educated in the most cutting edge hospital procedures and medical discoveries.

Two years later, a young African American named James Cornish was admitted to Provident Hospital. He had been involved in a bar fight and had suffered a stab wound to the chest. By the time he reached the hospital he had lost a lot of blood and was close to death. Williams was faced with the choice of whether or not to open his chest and operate inside, which was almost unheard of in those days.



Williams made the decision to open the patient’s chest and he performed a new type of surgery (which we now know as open heart surgery) to repair a tear in James’ heart. The surgery was performed without a blood transfusion, modern anaesthetic or antibiotics and miraculously, James Cornish walked out of the hospital two months later, after making a complete recovery.


After this life-saving operation, Williams gained great respect and was appointed Chief Surgeon in a hospital in Washington DC. He set about reorganising the hospital and because of the changes he implemented, doctors from all over the country travelled to view his hospital procedures because there had been such an astounding decrease in patient deaths.

At that time, the American Medical Association would only allow white members to join, so Williams helped to set up and served as vice-president of the National Medical Association. Daniel later resumed his position of Chief of Surgery at Provident Hospital, which was now capable of accommodating 65 patients. He also travelled overseas to attend to important patients or to oversee surgical procedures. He later resigned from Provident and became Staff Surgeon at St Luke’s Hospital, until he suffered a stroke in 1926. He moved to Michigan and spent the rest of his years in retirement until his death in 1931.

In Daniel Williams’ lifetime, not only did he achieve so much for a person facing so many prejudices and not only was he the first to perform life-saving surgery used in hospitals today, but he had set the wheels in motion. Daniel had urged other black leaders in other cities to open hospitals. In 1890, there were two black medical schools in America. By 1900, this had increased to ten. These hospitals helped reduce the death rates of African Americans and the training of black doctors and nurses meant that they could make an even greater contribution.

Daniel died leaving behind standards and examples for both black and white surgeons for years to come. He achieved all this because he knew from an early age that education would be the key to a successful life.


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