米娅·利文森，塔夫茨大学，安德鲁·W. 梅隆研究员
By the serendipitous combination of the pandemic’s limitations and a mislabeled folder, I found myself with scans of 约翰·范·萨利·德格拉斯的医疗账簿, 位于 DeGrasse-Howard论文. 乍一看, a 医疗帐簿 seemed like an opaque collection of names, 服务, 和费用. 然而, I found his records to be filled with nuggets of information about how medicine plays a role in people’s lives, 病人和医生. Through a careful excavation process using census data and city directories, I was able to find bits and pieces about the ways in which one of the first African American physicians educated in the United States served his community.
There has been little written on DeGrasse and his life, but what we do know is that alongside another student of color, he was one of the first Black graduates of the Maine Medical School at Bowdoin College in 1849. DeGrasse practiced in Europe and New York City before coming to Boston in 1852. 两年后, he became a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and was the first Black physician to be admitted into a medical society anywhere in the nation. 他的医疗账簿, 哪个记录了他从1852年到1857年的服务, offers fascinating insight about his practice as the first Black physician in Boston from the very beginning through the contentious years before the 内战.
While DeGrasse’s account book notes the monotony of his day-to-day work – most of the entries are simply charges for “visit and prescription” – there are also references to the kinds of treatments he would administer. 放血, 例如, was a common practice in nineteenth century medicine and DeGrasse similarly used cupping and leeches on several patients. 德格拉斯还为他的许多病人接种了疫苗, 特别是在1854年, which corresponds with a massive smallpox epidemic that year. 在19世纪中期, 疫苗接种是一场有争议的辩论, so it is notable that DeGrasse not only believed in its efficacy but administered vaccines to the marginalized communities he served.
While only a few diagnoses are included in his records, what DeGrasse chose to include provides insight into the kinds of diseases he encountered. One John Henry Garrison passed away during a minor cholera outbreak in 1854. 德格拉斯的两个病人. H和劳埃德·麦凯布，接受了性病治疗. It is unclear why their diagnosis was remarked upon while others were not. 也许它注意到了一个潜在的长期问题. Or maybe it explained why they were charged significantly more for their treatment (for instance, 在麦凯布, DeGrasse charged him $15 for a visit and prescription rather than the usual $1).
Genealogical research gives a closer look into the communities DeGrasse served.[1] 从白杨街出发, he primarily treated patients living in the Fifth and Sixth Wards, a once historically Black neighborhood that is now known as Beacon Hill and the West End, 分别. DeGrasse began his practice treating mainly his in-laws, the well-known Howard family. 有趣的是, 他治疗了他妻子的侄子, 埃德温·克拉伦斯·霍华德, who would later go on to be Harvard Medical School’s first Black graduate. Peter Baldwin also appears in DeGrasse’s records as one of his first non-relative patients. 著名的废奴主义者, 他的女儿, 玛丽亚·路易斯·鲍德温, would become a leader of Black education in Cambridge. DeGrasse’s records thus reveals how he served an emerging African American middle class in Boston that was intricately linked to nineteenth-century activism.
Among DeGrasse’s patient base were also a number of African Americans who were born in slave states. Benjamin C. Gregory, who was a regular of DeGrasse’s, was born in North Carolina. Historians can only imagine what it must have meant for a formerly enslaved person—whose experiences with physicians were exclusive to plantation doctors who viewed them as chattel rather than people—to be treated by a Black physician.
DeGrasse did not only serve Boston’s African American community. While census data does not always provide information on race, 他有很多病人都出生在爱尔兰, 比如威廉·梅伦和艾伦·马歇尔. 他是当代有色人种医生, James McCune Smith在纽约报道, 有多种族的患者基础吗, it has yet to be acknowledged that DeGrasse had one as well.[2] During his time as an assistant surgeon in the Union Army, DeGrasse continued to serve both white and Black soldiers. After the War, he returned to Boston and continued with his medical practice until his death in 1868.[3]
As historians continue to pan for golden flakes of information about nineteenth-century life, DeGrasse’s 医疗帐簿 gives small but marvelous glints of one of the nation’s first Black physicians. 他的医疗实践, 他遇到的疾病, and the communities he served offer glimpses into how DeGrasse’s groundbreaking work fit into the constellation of Boston society. His records have been a wonderful reminder for me that the archive is filled with these treasures if only we pause to look.
[1] All genealogical research was done using the 1850 and 1860 U.S. Federal Census and the 1855 Massachusetts State Census, all accessed via AncestryLibrary.com
[2] 约翰•Stauffer 人类的黑心，(剑桥:哈佛大学出版社，2002)，66.
[3] 富兰克林一. 多尔曼, 马萨诸塞州20个有色人种家庭:1742-1998, (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1998), 155-7.