Vivien Hamilton: surgeon-janitor

Creation: Spring & Easter
Sense make before book. (Grenada, Tobago)













A sister-author‘s comment on yesterday’s post led me to Vivien Thomas. She wrote, “Hamilton Naki is the Vivien Thomas of South Africa. Wow!!! When will we get our just due?”

When, indeed.

Like Naki, Thomas assisted a white surgeon, Alfred Blalock, in animal research. Like Naki, in a time or place without segregation Thomas would have been recognized everywhere for his medical research and his surgical skills. With no little education and no formal medical training, both men performed operations, did post-doctoral research, and trained student surgeons while holding menial positions: Naki as a gardener and Thomas as a janitor.

Thomas and Blalock worked together to disprove the theory that medical shock resulted form toxins in the blood. Their research into the causes of shock saved lives of thousands of soldiers in battle. At the same time, Blalock and Thomas worked on experiments that were to revolutionize heart surgery.

When Blalock became Chief of Surgery at Johns Hopkins in 1941, he asked for Thomas join his team. Thomas then became the only Black employee (except for janitors) at Johns Hopkins. The appearance of this Black man in a white lab coat created as much confusion as his surgical skills without a medical degree.

When a paediatric heart surgeon sought a cure for blue baby syndrome Thomas had the answer. He created the blue baby condition in a dog, and then corrected the condition through surgery. Thomas worked on the process for about two years, operating on 200 dogs. Blalock performed the surgery only once, as Thomas’ assistant. Thomas therefore needed to direct Blalock step by step when the surgeon used the procedure for the first time on a child. At Blalock’s insistence, Thomas stood at his right shoulder for his first 100 operations on blue babies.

The medical world hailed the blue baby surgery as a breakthrough, and neither Blalock nor Johns Hopkins acknowledged Thomas’ contribution. Indeed, Johns Hopkins did not accept its first Black surgical students for another thirty years. Thomas continued to be so poorly paid that he sometimes worked as a bartender, often at Blalock’s parties. Lines between the two men may have been blurred in the lab, but the distinctions were reinforced in the medical school (low pay, separate bathrooms and entrances) and on social occasions. Johns Hopkins raised Thomas' salary and appointed him senior lab technician only when, in 1946, Thomas threatened to resign to return to carpentry.

Thomas (August 29, 1910 – November 26, 1985), grandson of a slave, was born in Louisiana and grew up in Tennessee. He wanted to become a doctor, and tried to earn money for his education by working as a carpenter and an orderly. The 1930s depression wiped out his savings and ended his dream. Thomas had difficulty finding permanent work of any kind, and was a janitor when Blalock hired him as laboratory assistant at Vanderbilt medical school. Within three days of his employment, Thomas was performing surgery on dogs. He tried to enter college again in 1950, but gave up on medical studies when his years of experience could not go to his credit.

Thomas’ partnership with Blalock lasted 34 years, and his work in surgical research continued for 15 years after Blalock's death. One of the many surgeons Thomas trained said of him, “Even if you'd never seen surgery before, you could do it because Vivien made it look so simple.”

In 1971, Thomas’s former medical students commissioned a painting of Thomas to be hung next to Blalock’s painting at Johns Hopkins. In 1976, Johns Hopkins presented Thomas with an honorary Doctor of Laws (not Doctor of Medicine), and in 1977 Thomas became an official member of the Johns Hopkins medical school faculty.

Thomas' story inspired the PBS documentary, "Partners of The Heart" and the HBO film, "Something The Lord Made."

Naki – South African surgeon gardener

Creation- Spring & Easter
Knowledge is like a garden: if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested. (Guinea)









Hamilton Naki’s work helped to bring about the world’s first heart transplant. Contrary to myth, he was not present when Professor Christian Barnard carried out the operation, because Black men were not allowed in white hospital rooms in apartheid South Africa. However, Naki’s skills in animal research paved the way for heart transplants on human beings.

In the late 1950s, Barnard’s hospital employed Naki to maintain the grounds and tennis courts. He was later sent to work at the medical school, cleaning the animals’ cages – work people avoided because it is so messy. One day, a professor of surgery asked Naki to help hold a giraffe on the operation table; as a result of the competence he showed, researchers gradually allowed Naki to do more serious work.

Naki proved to be a skilled surgeon and anesthetist. In particular, he had surgeon’s fingers and did open heart surgery, pulmonary bypass, and heart and liver transplants on dogs. He was skilled in the post-operative care of animals, and he was able to do almost all the work of a qualified surgeon. Indeed, Barnard thought Naki did a better job of stitching than surgeons including Barnard himself. Naki taught transplant techniques to about three thousand young surgeons who studied under Barnard.

Naki gained his surgical skills because of his intelligence, memory, and capacity to learn by observing and practice in secret. The hospital promoted Naki to the highest position possible for him under apartheid law – senior lab technician. Nonetheless, when he retired he received a gardener’s pension.

Barnard acknowledged Naki’s work only after apartheid ended, when he referred to Naki as. “one of the great researchers of all time in the field of heart transplants.” Naki’s work as Barnard’s principal assistant was particularly important when Barnard developed arthritis in his hands.

Naki (26 June 1926 – 29 May 2005) was born in rural South Africa and migrated to
Cape Town when left school at 14. He had only sixth grade education, and could not have received medical training under the apartheid system. While he worked with Barnard, he lived in a Black township where he had no electricity or running water. Most of his wages went back to his village to support his extended family.

During his retirement, Naki organized a mobile clinic for his rural community that was 50 miles from the nearest doctor or hospital. In addition, he organized support for schools with funds collected from doctors he had trained.

In 2002, Naki received one of South Africa’s highest honors – the presidential award of the Order of the Mapungubwe. In 2003, the University of Cape Town awarded him an honorary medical degree.

Dr Drew invested in blood banks

Creation: Spring & Easter
Blood follow vein. (Jamaica)











Early experiences led me to associate going to the blood bank with hot chocolate given to us to compensate for the pint of blood we gave up. The technicians often sent me away with all my blood still in my veins, because I was often low on iron. My visits were often voluntary, but very frequently I would be giving blood for a friend or family member in crisis. Mostly I would avert my eyes from the blood leaving my body, but a little halo would take shape over my head at the thought that I might have saved someone life. Besides, controlled bloodletting could well be good for our health.

Blood banks have been saving lives since Dr Charles Richard (June 3, 1904 - April 1, 1950) began a system of preserving blood plasma. Drew, medical doctor, surgeon, and researcher, was born in Washington DC. His prowess at track and football helped him gain a part scholarship at Amherst College. Indeed, he was a coach between leaving college and attending medical school at McGill University (Montreal, Canada) and Colombia University (New York City).

Drew researched blood transfusions, and started the idea of blood banks for long term storage of blood plasma. He directed the US Blood for Britain project send blood for British soldiers and civilians in the event of a German invasion in 1940. He later became director of the blood bank for the National Research Council, collecting blood for the US army and navy. He also created the model for today’s Red Cross blood banks, and also helped set up the UK’s blood bank system.



When the US War Department’s issued a directive to separate blood from black and white donors, Drew resigned his position in protest. Drew lost his job as director when he protested a. Drew said, “the blood of individual human beings may differ by blood groupings, but there is absolutely no scientific basis to indicate any difference in human blood from race to race."

Dr Drew died in 1950 after a car accident. A US postage stamp was issued in 1981 to honor him.

Let's further honor him by scheduling an early visit to the nearest blood bank.

Garret Morgan lights our way

Creation: Spring & Easter
Doing one's best drives away regret. (Malagasy)











When I was growing up, policemen controlled traffic at intersections. Some directed traffic with such style – on horseback and with white gloves – that the operation felt like theater. Today’s traffic lights may be more efficient, but they lack the drama of those Jamaican policemen with flashing fingers, emperors decreeing when we could go and when we must stop. Police appear at junctions now when the power goes and traffic lights are blank, but they seem more like interludes than the main act.

Garrett Augustus Morgan (March 4, 1877 - August 27, 1963) invented the traffic lights that impact so much on the lives of road users today. Morgan was the first Black man to own a motor car in Cleveland, Ohio, and he saw at first hand the many crashes between the early motor vehicles and pedestrians, cyclists, animal-drawn wagons, and other gasoline-powered motor vehicles.



Morgan invented his version of traffic signals after he witnessed a collision between a car and a horse-drawn carriage. He created a mechanical traffic light that could be operated form a distance, an improvement on over the manually-operated versions then in existence. The patent was granted in 1923, and Morgan’s traffic signals were used around the world till the red, amber, and green lights were introduced.

Another of his inventions also contributed greatly to public safety. In 1912, Morgan received a patent for a a gas mask that he used to rescue men trapped in an underground tunnel. Soldiers in World War I used a refined version of his gas mask.

He was born in Kentucky to parents who were former slaves. He attended school while working on the family farm, and had no formal education beyond elementary school. When he moved to Cleveland, Ohio, he worked as a sewing machine repairman and began to experiment with ways of improving his trade. He opened his own sewing machine repair shop in 1907. His success in business enabled him to buy a home and a car.

His wealth did not protect him from the race prejudice of the times. Active in Black organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), he worked for change in race relations from about 1914 until his death in 1963.

Before his death, the United States Government awarded him a citation for his traffic signal

George Crum - Chips from a long ago block

Creation: Spring & Easter
Concerning food, there is no adult. (Uganda)






For some of us, joy is a bag of chips and a book, a bag of chips and a movie, a bag of chips and salsa. Or just a bag of chips, any flavor. We owe our pleasure to George Crum and his annoyance at one of his customers.

George was a chef at the Moon Lake Lodge resort in Santiago Springs, New York. In 1853, a guest ordered French fries from George’s restaurant. This delicacy, briefly renamed Freedom Fries in the US when France refused to support the Iraq war, had been popular since the 1700s. The potatoes would be cut lengthwise, lightly fried, and then eaten with a fork.

“Too thick, and not crisp enough,” said the customer, sending George’s French fries to the kitchen.

So George fried up another batch. The child of a Black father and a Native American mother, he had previously been a trapper. His exceptionally cooking skills had earned him the job as chef, and he resented complaints about his food. He therefore conceivably used choice words to describe this overly fussy customer.

“Still too thick. And definitely not crisp enough,” said the customer.

George clearly had other meals to cook, and he needed to end this customer’s demands on his time and patience. He therefore decided to teach the customer a lesson by sending back an inedible meal. So he sliced the potatoes as thin as paper, and friend them as crisp as tree bark. He hoped to annoy the customer further by making the fries greasy and impossible to eat with a fork. He also added excess salt.

“Wow!!” said the customer this time. “Delicious!!”

Soon, other restaurant guests demands these new treats as well. George’s “Saratoga Chips” were so popular and profitable that he opened his own restaurant with a basket of chips on every table.








George never patented his idea, and other entrepreneurs carried the concept to success. Today, potato chips are arguably a favorite snack inside and outside the US.

Lewis Latimer: the light touch

Creation: Spring & Easter
A candle burns itself out to give light to others. (Africa)















I value electric light the most when I lose it, as when the power was off in my house for eight weeks following Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. Today even if the power is off for a few hours, many of us feel unable to function. We owe a lot to Lewis Latimer.

He was born in 1848 to George and Rebecca Latimer who fled Virginia to escape slavery. When Lewis was a child, slave catchers held George and threatened to return him to the slave master. His adopted community in Massachusetts raised $400 to buy his freedom, and George took his family into hiding out of fear of being re-enslaved. So Lewis Latimer grew up poor, and with virtually no formal education.

Latimer enlisted in the navy during the American Civil War. He was only 15 years old at the time, and so he forged the age on his birth certificate. When he left the navy, he went to work as an office boy for solicitors who specialized in patents.

Latimer taught himself to draw, and became so skilled that he drafted the drawings for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patent application. He then went to work with the U.S. Electric Light Company, Bell’s main competitor. Here he invented a method of making filaments to improve the quality of electric lamps. He also supervised the 1881 installation of electric light in New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London.

In 1884, Latimer started working as draftsman for Thomas Edison. He was a draftsman and assistant manager, and the only Black person in the engineering division of Edison’s company. He was also Edison’s expert witness in his many lawsuits related to electric lights.

Besides being an inventor, Latimer was a poet, artist, writer, and flautist. Some of his mechanical drawings were as beautiful as works of art, and he wrote a book of poems as well as the first book on electrical lighting.



For his genius in helping to start up the electric light industry, Latimer was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Henry Blair - inventor who couldn't read or write

Creation: Spring & Easter
A bird can't know where the corn is ready to eat unless it flies. (Burundi)













We rightly celebrate our highly educated family members, those who earn higher degrees often at great cost. But what of the contributions from family members who could not read or write?

A friend recently told me she discovered her grandmother was illiterate only after her death, because she had signed her will with an “X”. Henry Blair’s “X” was also the sign that he could not even write his name when he filed his patent application.

Blair was born in 1807, the year before Britain ended its involvement in the slave trade. As far as we know, he lived in Montgomery County, Maryland. Some say he was a slave who found ways to work secretly on his inventions. Others say he must have been a free man, or else he would have been unable to receive a patent. We know he was Black because patent records identify him as a “colored man”, the only inventor referred to by race.

His corn seed planter allowed farmers to increase their profits by planting corn faster and with considerably less labour. He also invented a cotton planter.

Blair died in 1860, testimony to giving wings to our ideas no matter our personal limitations.