African American exhibit

[L Verge]

This past Saturday at Surratt House, we had an excellent program on African American surgeons and nurses during the Civil War. Nearly 70 visitors were present, and all were surprised that 13 black surgeons have been identified thus far. We all thought that the number would be less.

I knew of two going into the lecture: Anderson Ruffin Abbott that I discussed with Thomas Kearney last week, and another named Delaney. After the war, black surgeons worked with the old Contraband/Freedmen's Hospital in D.C., which is now Howard University Hospital. Freedmen's grew out of the need for medical care for the thousands of newly freed slaves who flocked into the contraband camps in the nation's capital during the war.

Our speaker was Jill Newmark from the National Library of Medicine, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.