Dr. James Durham

Dr. James Durham was born into slavery in 1762. As a child, he was already mixing medicines for a physician who bought him from another slave owner. He also was taught how to read and write and serve and work with patients. At age 21, Dr. Durham buys his freedom and begins his own medical practice in New Orleans, becoming the first melaninite doctor in the United States. At age 26, Dr. Durham is invited to Philadelphia to meet Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who wanted to investigate Durham's reported success in treating patients with diphtheria. Dr. Rush was so impressed that he personally read Durham's paper on diphtheria before the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Durham returned to New Orleans in 1789, where he saved more yellow fever victims than any other physician, losing only 11 of his 64 patients.