The 2022 Black History Month's theme is Black Health and Wellness and MedChi is celebrating and highlighting the contributions and breakthroughs of Black physicians. We thought we'd share some of the Black physicians that MedChi's media team highlighted over the past month.
Dr. Nellie Louise Young was the first Black female physician to practice medicine in Baltimore. She specialized in obstetrics and gynecology and served on numerous city and state committees in the 52 years during which she practiced medicine.
Dr. Young was born
in Baltimore on June 7, 1907, and attended what is now Frederick Douglass High School,
graduating in 1924, and from Howard University in 1927. She went on to
graduate from Howard University’s School of Medicine in 1930. She anticipated
returning to Baltimore to do her internship, but no hospital would accept her,
including Provident Hospital, a historically Black hospital, which said there
was no place for her to sleep. So, Dr. Young interned at Freedman’s Hospital, Howard
University’s Hospital. She was finally awarded a residency at Provident
Hospital in 1940.
In 1932, Dr. Young opened her practice above her father’s drugstore, Young’s Pharmacy, on Druid Hill Avenue and West Hoffman Street, a meandering street that stops and starts across the city. Her father, Dr. Howard E. Young, was the state’s first black pharmacist and also graduated from Howard University. Later, both Dr. Youngs moved to 1100 Druid Hill Avenue, where Dr. Howard Young re-opened his pharmacy and Dr. Louise Young had her offices.
During her 52
years of medical practice, she served on numerous city and state medical
committees. Dr. Young was a member of the executive committee and staff at
Provident Hospital, and chief of the hospital’s obstetrics department. She
served as a visiting obstetrician at Union Memorial Hospital, as courtesy staff
at the old South Baltimore General Hospital, and as an associate member of the
gynecology and cancer detection staff at the old North Charles General Hospital
in Charles Village.
Friends said that Dr. Louise Young, who delivered thousands of babies before stopping in the early 1980s, said that the most wonderful thing in the world is to deliver a healthy baby and to see the expressions on the mother’s and father’s faces.
For a number of
years, Dr. Young’s office was on Druid Hill Avenue, and then later, she moved
to Garrison Boulevard. At the same time, she was the women’s physician at
Morgan State College, the girls’ physician at Frederick Douglass High School
and the staff physician at the Maryland Training School for Colored Girls, later
Montrose School for Girls in Owings Mills. Dr. Young also operated a Planned
Parenthood Clinic.
Early in her
practice, a male physician told her it was a waste for a woman to get a medical
degree (a commonly held idea) because she would quit and have children. Dr. Young
replied that she planned to practice for a half a century, which she did, plus
two years for good measure. She retired from practice in 1984.
Dr. N. Louise
Young lived in Ashburton, was a lifetime member of the NAACP, and a
long-time member of St. James Episcopal Church on Lafayette Square in West
Baltimore. She died at age 90 on September 22, 1997 of complications from
Alzheimer’s.
Source: The Baltimore Sun
I was recently asked to do some research on St. Gabriel's Home and Hospital here in Baltimore. St. Gabriel's was one of the few places in the area which cared for children with rheumatic fever, and allowed them to stay for months so that they could fully recover from the disease. Much of that time would be spent quietly in bed, with a gradual increase in activity.
As you may know, untreated strep throat can lead to rheumatic fever, which eventually damages the heart. Because the anti-biotics that are common to us now, were virtually unknown at the time, homes like St. Gabriel's were essential to stopping the spread of the disease and allowing children the time and space they needed for their full recovery. Rheumatic fever accounted for 90% of heart disease in children.
Most of the girls at St. Gabriel's were from impoverished families in Baltimore City. For them to recover from rheumatic fever at home, where there was frequently no heat or hot water, and poor nutirtion, was basically sentencing them to a slow death.
St. Gabriel's was located near Catonsville and was run by the Sisters of All Saints of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In 2009, the nuns converted to become Roman Catholics, as they thought the Episcopal Church had become too liberal. The stone convent was built in 1921, and replaced an earlier shingle home, The Country Home for Children, which had burnt to the ground several years earlier.
It was originally a home for "consumptive" children, but later expanded its mission.
In 1926, a new building was added to the property, paid for by a bequest the Sisters received. It was a two-story stucco building for 26 girls, their nurses and the supervising sisters. Girls from age two to fourteen were admitted, with no length of time stipulated for their stay. It was a convalescent home which operated for almost 50 years, closing in 1972, and re-opening a year later as a retreat house.
Dr. Helen Taussig, who worked with Dr. Alfred Blalock on the "blue baby" surgery, specialized in childhood rheumatism, and worked with the nurses and Sisters at St. Gabriel's over many years.
In the 1940s, St. Gabriel's was the only convalescent home to admit Black girls at a time when there were more than 700 children in the city suffering from rheumatic fever, while there were fewer than 50 long-term beds, which were mainly for white children.
For decades, women from churches, temples and clubs in Baltimore would host bridge parties, luncheons, fairs, and dances to support St. Gabriel's. These women also went to St. Gabriel's and entertained the girls at seasonally-themed parties.
As mentioned, St. Gabriel's ceased accepting children in the early 1970s and became a convent and retreat center nestled in the middle of Patapsco State Park, high above the river..
The Center for a Healthy Maryland is collecting items for the upcoming Presidential Gala for Loralie Ma, MD. We hope that each and every MedChi member will participate in this fun event either by donating an item for the Silent Auction or by purchasing tickets to the Presidential Gala which will be held at Turf Valley Country Club in Ellicott City on Saturday, April 2, 2022.
I was checking out one of the local auction sites and discovered they were auctioning off a Lister Society medal from a meeting that was held here in Baltimore in May of 1993. There is not a ton of information about the Lister Society, although I know there is a local group, because I presented to them a few years ago.
I do know who Lister is, and you might get a clue because of the popular mouthwash, Listerine! Joseph Lister, Baron Lister of Lyme Regis (5 April 1827 – 10 February 1912), was a British surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine.
Lister revolutionised the craft of surgery and promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He successfully introduced carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds. Once his ideas were generally adapted, infection rates dropped dramatically.
Coincidentally, the medal is being auctioned off on the 110th anniversary of Lister's death. The link to the listing is here. UPDATE: The medal sold for $425 + 25% buyer's premium + tax.
From Member, Dr. Harry Knipp:
The Lister Society has been in existence since its founding in 1907 as the Bayview Medical Society. Membership is limited to 25 physicians. While the majority of members are University of Maryland Medical School grads, that's not a requirement.
In the past, when a membership position became available, members would invite a prospective colleague to give a medical talk at a monthly meeting. If after this audition, said physician was deemed acceptable for membership, a closed vote requiring unanimous approval was undertaken.
Now, with such variations in sub-specialties, the medical talks proved less interesting and our speakers each month are gleaned from our varied contacts… and we've had no shortage of amazing presentations, as you well know.
When there's an opening, prospective new members are invited as guests to a meeting or two and if there's mutual interest, they're voted in. We've had amazing speakers over the years from shuttle astronauts to D Day veterans to cartoonists to opera stars to newspaper editors to Lincoln assassination experts to Hubble scientists and many, many more.
