Early Black Physicians in Maryland

The history of Black physicians in Maryland is long, but sadly, virtually un-explored.

One of the earliest reports of a Black physician practicing in Maryland dates from 1750. Henry Game, a freed slave in Somerset County on the Eastern Shore, was praised in the October 1750 issue of the Maryland Gazette as a successful doctor. He is also mentioned as a doctor in the register of the Stepney Parish in Somerset County in 1751.

Fast forward to 1818, when two men of color, Drs. Marlborough and Gibson were mentioned as practicing medicine without a license on the Eastern Shore.

In 1832, Dr. Lewis G. Wells was reputed to have attended the now-defunct Washington Medical College in Baltimore.

According to contemporary reports, it was likely that he studied at the university while working as an employee there, and reports also mention that he was one most skillful physicians of the day. He was Baltimore’s only Black physician at the time.

During the cholera epidemic in 1832, he was seen riding up and down the streets of Baltimore, administering to the sick and dying.

Samuel Ford McGill was the first Liberian colonist to receive a medical education in the United States. He also studied at Washington University, in 1836, but he was dismissed due to pressure from white students. He eventually attended Dartmouth University, where he graduated with a medical degree.

He returned to Liberia and became a colonial governor.

In 1882, the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty admitted its first Black member, Whitfield Winsey.

Dr. John Dunbar tutored Dr. Winsey in medicine, and in 1871, Winsey graduated from Harvard Medical School.

He returned to Baltimore and established a private practice on East Fayette Street. In April 1882, Dr. Winsey applied to the Baltimore City Medical & Surgical Society, but his membership was denied. Later that month, Dr. Winsey became the first Black member of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty.

In 1894, Dr. Winsey, along with a group of prominent Black physicians, founded Provident Hospital on Orchard Street, the first private teaching hospital for Blacks in Baltimore.

Although Winsey was employed as a physician at Black institutions such as the Melvale Home for Colored Girls and Provident Hospital, he belonged to white fraternal and professional organizations, including the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty and the Masons. Dr. Winsey provided leadership for many aspects of nineteenth-century Black society in Baltimore.

The second Black member of the Faculty was Dr. Reverdy M. Hall, who became a member in 1884. He attended Howard University’s Medical College and graduated in 1872.

He opened a private practice on Druid Hill Avenue in Baltimore. There is some evidence that Dr. Hall was an OB/GYN, and he published a lengthy article in the Faculty’s 1890 Transactions, entitled “Fibroid Tumors Complicating Pregnancy."

Along with Dr. Winsey, Dr. Hall was one of the founders of Provident Hospital.

The Medical and Surgical School of Christ’s Institution of Baltimore City (also called the Medico-Chirurgical and Theological College of Christ’s Institution) was the first Black medical school incorporated in Baltimore. The school was still in existence as late as 1918. However, it graduated very few physicians and there is scant information about it and it doesn’t appear on the 1909 Flexner Report of Medical Schools.

In 1885, The Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland changed its constitution from “gentlemen members” to “persons” due to the number of Blacks and women who were becoming physicians and wanted to join.

Local reference materials list a number of other early Black medical societies, including:

·        The Maryland Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical Association.

·         The Maryland Colored Medical Association

·         The Maryland State Medical Association

·         MeDeSo – the Medical Dental Society, and finally,

·         The Monumental City Medical Society.

In 1983, MedChi elected Dr. Roland Smoot as its first Black president.

In 1963, Dr. Smoot was appointed chief of medicine at Provident Hospital, the same year Hopkins permitted him to have admitting privileges - a first for an African-American physician at Hopkins. In 1978, Dr. Smoot was named an assistant dean for student affairs at Hopkins and spent the next 26 years recruiting and counseling students at the school. 

MedChi is proud of its long history supporting Black physicians in Maryland.