The Journal of Negro History
Vol. I., No. 2 April, 1916
Edited ByCarter G. WoodsonPUBLISHED QUARTERLY
The Historic Background of the Negro Physician
In a homogeneous society where there is no racial cleavage, only the selected members of the most favored class occupy the professional stations. The element representing the social status of the Negro would, therefore, furnish few members of the coveted callings. The element of race, however, complicates every feature of the social equation. In India we are told that the population is divided horizontally by caste and vertically by religion; but in America the race spirit serves both as horizontal and vertical separations. The Negro is segregated and shut in to himself in all social and semi-social relations of life. This isolation necessitates separate ministrative agencies from the lowest to the highest rounds of the ladder of service. During the days of slavery the interests of the master demanded that he should direct the general social and moral life of the slave, and should provide especially for his physical well-being. The sudden severance of this tie left the Negro wholly without intimate guidance and direction. The ignorant must be enlightened, the sick must be healed, and the poor must have the gospel preached to them. The situation and circumstances under which the race found itself demanded that its professional class, for the most part, should be men of their own blood and sympathies. The needed service could not be effectively performed by those who assumed and asserted racial arrogance, and bestowed their professional service as cold crumbs that fell from the master's table. The professional class who are to uplift and direct the lowly must not say, "So far shalt thou come, but not any farther," but rather, "Where I am, there ye shall be also."
There is no more pathetic chapter in the history of human struggle than the emergence of the smothered ambition of this race to meet the social exigencies involved in the professional needs of the masses. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, the plowhand was transformed into a priest, the barber into a bishop, the housemaid into a schoolmistress, the day-laborer into a lawyer, and the porter into a physician. These high places of intellectual and professional authority, into which they found themselves thrust by stress of social necessity, had to be operated with at least some semblance of conformity to the standards which had been established by the European through the traditions of the ages. The higher place in society occupied by the choicest members of the white race, and that too after long years of arduous preparation, had to be assumed by black men without personal or formal fitness. The stronger and more aggressive natures pushed themselves into these higher callings by sheer force of untutored energy and uncontrolled ambition.
An accurate study of the healing art as practiced by Negroes in Africa as well as its continuance after transplantation in America would form an investigation of great historical interest. This, however, is not the purpose of this paper. It is sufficient to note the fact that witchcraft and the control of disease through roots, herbs, charms and conjuration are universally practiced on the continent of Africa. Indeed, the medicine man has a standing and influence that is sometimes superior to that of kings and queens. The natives of Africa have discovered their own materia medica by actual practice and experience with the medicinal value of minerals and plants. It must be borne in mind that any pharmacopeia must rest upon the basis of practical experiment and experience. The science of medicine was developed by man in his groping to relieve pain and to curb disease, and was not handed down ready made from the skies. In this groping, the African, like the rest of the children of men, has been feeling after the right remedies, if haply he might find them.
It was inevitable that the prevailing practice of conjuration in Africa should be found among Negroes after they had been transferred to the new continent. The conjure man was well known in every slave community. He generally turned his art, however, to malevolent rather than benevolent uses; but this was not always the case. Not infrequently these medicine men gained such wide celebrity among their own race as to attract the attention of the whites. As early as 1792 a Negro by the name of Cesar98 had gained such distinction for his curative knowledge of roots and herbs that the Assembly of South Carolina purchased his freedom and gave him an annuity of one hundred pounds.
That slaves not infrequently held high rank among their own race as professional men may be seen from the advertisements of colonial days. A runaway Negro named Simon was in 1740 advertised in The Pennsylvania Gazette99 as being able to "bleed and draw teeth" and "pretending to be a great doctor among his people." Referring in 1797 to a fugitive slave of Charleston, South Carolina, The City Gazette and Daily Advertiser100 said: "He passes for a Doctor among people of his color and it is supposed practices in that capacity about town." The contact of such practitioners with the white race was due to the fact that the profession of the barber was at one time united with that of the physician. The practice of phlebotomy was considered an essential part of the doctor's work. As the Negro early became a barber and the profession was united with that of the physician, it is natural to suppose that he too would assume the latter function. That phlebotomy was considered an essential part of the practice of the medicine is seen from the fact that it was practiced upon George Washington in his last illness. An instance of this sort of professional development among the Negroes appears in the case of the barber, Joseph Ferguson. Prior to 1861 he lived in Richmond, Virginia, uniting the three occupations of leecher, cupper, and barber. This led to his taking up the study of medicine in Michigan, where he graduated and practiced for many years.
The first regularly recognized Negro physician, of whom there is a complete record, was James Derham, of New Orleans. He was born in Philadelphia in 1762, where he was taught to read and write, and instructed in the principles of Christianity. When a boy he was transferred by his master to Dr. John Kearsley, Jr., who employed him occasionally to compound medicines, and to perform some of the more humble acts of attention to his patients. Upon the death of Dr. Kearsley, he became (after passing through several hands) the property of Dr. George West, surgeon to the Sixteenth British Regiment, under whom, during the Revolutionary War, he performed many of the menial duties of the medical profession. At the close of the war, he was sold by Dr. West to Dr. Robert Dove at New Orleans, who employed him as an assistant in his business, in which capacity he gained so much of his confidence and friendship, that he consented to liberate him, after two or three years, upon easy terms. From Dr. Derham's numerous opportunities of improving in medicine, he became so well acquainted with the healing art, as to commence practicing in New Orleans, under the patronage of his last master. He once did business to the amount of three thousand dollars a year. Benjamin Rush, who had the opportunity to meet him, said: "I have conversed with him upon most of the acute and epidemic diseases of the country where he lives and was pleased to find him perfectly acquainted with the modern simple mode of practice on those diseases. I expected to have suggested some new medicines to him; but he suggested many more to me. He is very modest and engaging in his manners. He speaks French fluently and has some knowledge of the Spanish language."101