Pioneering Surgeon On July 9, 1893, Daniel Hale Williams, pioneering African-American surgeon, repaired the lacerated pericardium (the membrane that encloses the heart) of a Chicago stab-wound victim. This operation, at Provident Hospital, is often called the world’s first successful heart surgery, even though Dr. H.C. Dalton of St. Louis had already performed a similar procedure in 1891. Williams was also one of the first African-American surgeons in the United States.
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