Did a black person do the first heart surgery?

Question

Did a black person do the first heart surgery?

Answer 1

According to your link verbatim "The lay media, however, often refer to it as the first successful heart surgery — a claim that is now as popularly accepted as it is false." This is explained as the surgery was performed on the pericardium and not the heart proper...

Then "But even if we count the pericardium as part of the heart, Dr. Williams' claim to distinction is spoiled by other surgeons who operated on the pericardium before he did. One of these was the now-forgotten Henry C. Dalton of St. Louis..." 1891 was the year.

"On September 6, 1891, H.C. Dalton, a professor of surgery in St. Louis, performed the first suture of the pericardium during an operation on a twenty-two-year-old man who had been stabbed in the chest. Two years later, Daniel H. Williams, a skilled ***** surgeon from Chicago, also sutured the pericardium during an operation on a twenty-four-year-old victim of a stab wound in the heart. Both patients recovered."

Again, involving only the pericardium.

According to the Mayo Clinic, the first open heart surgery successfully performed was in 1955 by a white man. Link is in references.

According to PBS, the absolute first open heart surgery involving the actual organ itself and not just the pericardium was by Dr. Dwight Harken during WW2 when he was given access to the open heart via war wounds.

To answer your question, it needs qualification. If you mean heart surgery period I would say you must go back to BCE times because the ancients did perform brain and heart surgeries.

If you mean in Common Era times, heart without qualifying pericardium vs. open heart surgery still no, a black man did not do the first successful one according to the link you provided H.C. Dalton, A white Male doctor, did in 1891.

Actual closed-heart (not pericardium) surgery was not succesfully implemented until 1948 and it was by a white male doctor, Dr. Charles Bailey.

"On September 2, 1952, two University of Minnesota surgeons, Dr. Walton Lillehei and Dr. John Lewis, attempted the first open heart surgery on a five-year-old girl who had been born with a hole in her heart...The operation was a success. "

1952, 2 white males. First recorded successful open heart surgery. Links below.

No, a black man was not the first to ever operate on a heart, even if you include pericardium as heart surgery. H.C. Dalton would seem to be the one to take that credit in 1891, who was a white male.

If you go BCE I can provide links proving researchers have discovered heart and brain surgery before common era times, thousands of years in the past. If these BCE surgeons were black or not is debatable, but the earliest known proven cases are from Egypt. That does not mean they were black though... Egypt throughout it's BCE history was inhabited by many cultures and colors.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Daniel Hale Williams Heart Surgery

Answer 4

The earliest operations that can be considered cardiac surgery were limited to the pericardium, and were pioneered by, among others, Francisco Romero,[1] Dominique Jean Larrey, Henry Dalton, and Daniel Hale Williams. The first successful surgery on the heart itself, performed without any complications, was by Dr. Ludwig Rehn of Frankfurt, Germany, who repaired a stab wound to the right ventricle on September 7, 1896.

Answer 5

NO. Henry Dalton was the first. The operation occurred on September 6, 1891 at the City Hospital, on a twenty-two-year-old man who had been stabbed in the chest. Upon arrival of the patient, Dalton cleaned the wound and applied a dressing of antiseptic gauze. After several hours, the patient s condition worsened: the left side of his chest became dull to percussion; his temperature and pulse rate rose; his breathing became shallow; and he complained of considerable pain. He was taken to the surgical amphitheatre, where Dalton made an incision over the fourth rib and removed about 6 inches (15 cm) of it. After tying the severed intercostal artery to control bleeding and removing the blood from the pleural cavity, Dalton observed a transverse wound of the PERICARDIUM about 2 inches (5 cm) in length. With a sharply curved needle and catgut, he closed the wound by continuous suture, overcoming great difficulty caused by the heart pulsations. The pleural cavity was then irrigated and the chest incision closed without drainage. The patient made "an uninterrupted, rapid recovery." The published report of the operation appeared in the state medical association s journal and another local periodical in 1894, and in the Annals of Surgery the following year.

Legacy
In 1893, TWO YEARS LATER, African American surgeon Daniel Hale Williams would be the first on record to MIMIC Dalton s success and repaired the torn pericardium of a knife wound patient, James Cornish. In the mid-1890s, attempts were made to further improve cardiac surgery. The first successful surgery ON THE HEART ITSELF was performed by Norwegian surgeon Axel Cappelen on 4 September 1895 at Rikshospitalet in Kristiania, now Oslo. THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL SURGERY OF THE HEART, performed without any complications, was by Dr. Ludwig Rehn of Frankfurt, Germany, who repaired a stab wound to the right ventricle on September 7, 1896.

End of story.

Answer 6

No. According to that link, Hale Williams is often credited with the first heart surgery but he didn't actually do it. The first heart surgery was performed by a German, Ludwig Rehn, in 1896. He was not black.

Brian, did you actually read the link you provided?

Answer 7

Vivien Thomas was not a doctor, but rather a black laboratory assistant who worked for Dr. Alfred Blalock, a renowned heart surgeon Thomas was able to survive the racial prejudice of the time and was eventually recognized for his research in the field of heart surgery.

Answer 8

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

Answer 9

Dr. Christian Barnard was a white South African, of Dutch descent.

Answer 10

A feller by the name of "Hale Williams" > Read Below