Black History Month Profile

Charles Drew:

Charles R. Drew was the physician who fathered the modern blood bank, pioneering the way that blood is stored making it possible to save countless lives during the Second World War. Amherst College from which he graduated in 1926. From there he attended McGill University of Montreal and in 1933 earned a MDCM (Medicinæ Doctorem et Chirurgiæ Magistrum: meaning Doctor of Medicine, Master of Surgery) ranking second in his class. He did his medical internship and residency in Montreal, studying along with Dr. John Beattie on issues of blood transfusions. Once his father died and Drew returned to the United States and by 1935 became an instructor at Howard University. Drew continued to expand his medical knowledge and experience working at other schools and hospitals all the while exploring blood related matters. Eventually, and with the help of John Scudder, Drew was able to develop a way to process and store blood plasma. In layman’s terms: blood without cells. Plasma can be stored (or banked) longer than whole blood. Drew discovered essentially that it could be dried out and reconstituted. In 1940 he earned his doctorate degree from Columbia with a thesis on banked blood. Despite the racism and adversity Charles Drew was the first African American to earn a degree from Columbia.

As the Second World War raged on in Europe Drew was asked to from a “Blood for Britain” program, collecting and processing blood to be used to aid British soldiers. It’s estimated he collected over 14000 pints of plasma. In 1941 Drew did another blood campaign for American soldiers however he became increasingly frustrated with the insistence that he separate blood donations by the race of the donors. Originally the military didn’t even want the blood of African Americans, when it became vital the wish was for the blood of African American donors to only be transfused into African American soldiers, and an infuriated Drew quit in only a few months. He returned to Howard University, eventually moving on to become a chief surgeon and winner of the NAACP’s Spingarn Award in 1943. In 1950 Drew and two other doctors were in na automobile accident, Drew did not survive. He died at age 45 leaving behind a wife and four children. There was a rumor that Drew’s death was caused when white doctors refused to treat him, however this is debunked and disproved, and Drew’s death was a great loss to the medical community. Posthumously he was given many awards and honors, as well as a University named in his honor named in his Honor, and his pioneering continues to help save lives today.