An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 8/8/2020
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"I feel that the recent ruling of the United States Army and Navy regarding the refusal of colored blood donors is an indefensible one from any point of view. As you know, there is no scientific basis for the separation of the bloods of different races except on the basis of the individual blood types or groups."
It is probably no exaggeration to name Dr. Charles R. Drew as one of the fathers of modern hematology. A pioneer in blood transfusion, Dr. Drew's career laid the foundation for modern blood and plasma banks, and their methods.
Born in 1904 in Washington, D.C., Drew started out upon an athletic path but ultimately pursued a dream of attending medical school --mostly a closed door to black Americans in the 1920's. So instead he studied at McGill University in Montreal, earning both Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery degrees. He took his internship at Royal Victoria Hospital, and his residency at Montreal General Hospital. He returned to the U.S. in 1938 and applied for a Fellowship at Columbia University. During that time he developed a method for processing and preserving blood plasma --since plasma lasts much longer than whole blood, it was possible for it to be stored or "banked" for longer periods of time, whereas blood itself was unuseable after only a few days. He discovered that the plasma could be dried and then reconstituted when needed, forming the foundation of an entire new subdiscipline. He received another doctorate in 1940 for this work; the first African-American to earn such a degree from Columbia.
During World War II Dr. Drew directed the blood plasma programs of the United States and Great Britain, but resigned after a ruling from the War Department that the blood of African-Americans must be segregated. He returned to Howard University as head of their department of surgery. He later became the chief surgeon at Freedmen's Hospital, and also became the first-ever African-American examiner for the American Board of Surgery. Tragically Dr. Drew was killed in a car accident in 1950 in Tuskegee, Alabama while enroute to a conference. In his short 45 years, he had quietly but decisively rewritten the entire process of what is now known as Blood Banking.
Charles R. Drew's memorial page at Columbia University:
https://blackhistory.news.columbia.edu/people/charles-r-drew
Next page - Lesson 27: Daniel Hale Williams