9781422283288

Chapter 1

R ebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was the first African-American wom- an ever to become a medical doc- tor, and the volume she published in 1883, A Book of Medical Discourses , is widely acknowledged as being among the first medi- cal texts ever written by a black person. The future physician was born Rebecca Davis Lee on February 8, 1831, in Delaware. Her parents were Matilda Webber and Absolum Davis. She was raised for the most part by an aunt in Pennsylvania who was of- ten called upon to care for ill neighbors. (Poor blacks typically had no access to profession- ally trained medical personnel in that era.) The introduction to A Book of Medical Discourses , which is available in the digi- tal collection of the US National Library of Medicine, informs readers: “It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind Rebecca Davis (Lee) Crumpler

Born: 1831 Died: 1895 Nationality: American Achievements:

First African-American woman doctor; author of important early medical text.

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