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Guichard Parris, a former officer of the National Urban League, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87 years old.
He died of a heart attack, a spokeswoman for the league said.
Mr. Parris, an adviser to two former league executive directors, Lester Granger and Whitney Young, joined the organization in 1944. In 1946, he started the league's public relations program. At his retirement in 1988, he had built it into a department employing 16 people who produced and distributed three million pieces of literature yearly, in addition to films for schools, television and civic organizations.
With Lester Brooks, he put together a book, "Blacks in the City," in 1950, commemorating the league's 40th anniversary.
He was born on the island of Guadeloupe in the French West Indies, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. He graduated from Amherst College, magna cum laude, and received an M.A. from Columbia University. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
He is survived by his wife, the former Willie Ferron; two daughters, Mary Jacobs and Louise Manley, and a son Frederick, all of Manhattan; three grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
Photo from the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center (CC0)
Charles Richard Drew was a medical researcher, surgeon, and the first African American to be appointed as a medical examiner for the American Board of Surgery. His research and work led to the development of processing and storing plasma in blood banks.
Drew was born on June 3, 1904, in Washington, DC. His mother, Nora Rosella Burrell Drew, was the daughter of a European sea captain, and was trained as a schoolteacher. His father, Richard Drew, was a light skinned African American carpet-layer, as well as the secretary and only non-white member of the Carpet, Linoleum, and Soft-Tile Layers Union in the District of Columbia.
Raised in an upper-middle class neighborhood, Drew first attended Stevens Elementary, then Dunbar High School. Drew was an excellent student and athlete, exceeding in four sports, which earned him the James E. Walker Medal, and an athletic scholarship to Amherst College in Massachusetts once he graduated from Dunbar in 1922. He continued to excel in athletics, but the death of his sister and an injury in his senior year changed his focus towards medicine.
Drew earned his AB from Amherst in 1926 and worked as the instructor of biology and chemistry as well as the athletic director at Morgan College (now Morgan State University), before attending McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During his internship at Montreal General Hospital, Drew conducted research that led to correlations between blood transfusions and shock therapy. He was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, a medical honor society when he received his Master of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine degree in 1933.
After returning to Washington, DC, Drew worked as a pathology instructor at Howard University, before beginning a long career at the Freedman’s Hospital (now Howard University Hospital) as a surgery instructor and surgeon. Drew was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship at Columbia University before working on his doctoral thesis, “Banked Blood: A Study on Blood Preservation,” at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
While at a conference, Drew met Minnie Lenore Robbins, and the two married in 1939. The couple had three daughters and a son. When he completed his studies at Columbia in 1940, Drew became the first African American in the United States to earn a Doctor of Science in Medicine degree. He was then recruited to set up and administer protocols for blood collection, storage, and preservation when the US entered World War II. He moved to New York City to serve as the medical director for the United States Blood to Britain Project, which provided aid to UK soldiers and citizens.
In 1941, Drew became the Director of the first American Red Cross blood bank. In that role he developed bloodmobiles for mobile donations. He resigned in 1942 when African American blood continued to be segregated despite his own scientific research that proved every person had the same type of blood plasma and thus transfusions could be administered to anyone regardless of the blood type or race of the donor. Drew returned to work at both Howard University and the Freedmen’s Hospital. While there he was awarded the Spingarn medal by the NAACP in 1944, and two honorary doctorate degrees.
On April 1, 1950, Drew and three of his resident physicians began traveling from Washington, DC. to Tuskegee Institute to attend a conference. Drew was driving in North Carolina and fell asleep at the wheel. The car ran off the road and he suffered serious injuries when he was thrown from the vehicle, and it rolled over him. Drew and the other inured passenger, John Ford, were taken to Alamance General Hospital, a “whites only” hospital despite their race. Drew died from his injuries at the hospital while Ford recovered. The Drew family later wrote letters to the attending physicians thanking them for their attempt to save the surgeon’s life. Charles Drew was only 45 when he died in North Carolina.
Charles Richard Drew(June 3, 1904 – April 1, 1950) was an Americansurgeonand medical researcher. He researched in the field ofblood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge to developing large-scaleblood banksearly inWorld War II. This allowed medics to save thousands ofAlliedforces' lives during the war.[1]As the most prominentAfrican Americanin the field, Drew protested against the practice ofracial segregationin the donation of blood, as it lacked scientific foundation, and resigned his position with theAmerican Red Cross, which maintained the policy until 1950.[2]
Early life and education
Charles Drew's 1922 Dunbar High School yearbook entry.
Drew was born in 1904 into an African-American middle-class family in Washington, D.C.[3] His father, Richard, was a carpet layer[4] and his mother, Nora Burrell, trained as a teacher.[5] Drew and three (two sisters, one brother) of his four younger siblings (three sisters and one brother total) grew up in Washington's largely middle-class and interracial Foggy Bottom neighborhood.[5][3] From a young age Drew began work as a newspaper boy in his neighborhood, daily helping deliver over a thousand newspapers to his neighbors. Drew attended Washington's Dunbar High School which was well known for its equality and opportunities for all, despite the racial climate at the time.[6] From 1920 until his marriage in 1939, Drew's permanent address was in Arlington County, Virginia,[7] although he graduated from Washington's Dunbar High School in 1922 and resided elsewhere during that period of time.[5][8]
It was during this stage in his medical journey that Drew worked with John Beattie, who was conducting research regarding the potential correlations between blood transfusions and shock therapy.[13]Shock occurs as the amount of blood in the body rapidly declines which can be due to a variety of factors such as a wound or lack of fluids (dehydration). As the body goes into shock, both blood pressure and body temperature decrease which then causes a lack of blood flow and a loss of oxygen in the body's tissues and cells. Eventually, it became clear that transfusions were the solution to treating victims of shock, but at the time there was no successful method of transportation or mass storage of blood, leaving transfusions to be extremely limited to location.[13]
Drew's first appointment as a faculty instructor was for pathology at Howard University from 1935 to 1936.[14] He then joined Freedman's Hospital, a federally operated facility associated with Howard University, as an instructor in surgery and an assistant surgeon. In 1938, Drew began graduate work at Columbia University in New York City on the award of a two-year Rockefeller fellowship in surgery. He then began postgraduate work, earning his Doctor of Science at Surgery at Columbia University. He spent time doing research at Columbia's Presbyterian Hospital and wrote a doctoral thesis, "Banked Blood: A Study on Blood Preservation," based on an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques.[14] It was through this blood preservation research where Drew realized blood plasma was able to be preserved, two months,[6] longer through de-liquification, or the separation of liquid blood from the cells. When ready for use the plasma would then be able to return to its original state via reconstitution.[15] This thesis earned him his Doctor of Science in Medicine degree in 1940, becoming the first African American to do so.[12][16] The District of Columbia chapter of the American Medical Association allowed only white doctors to join, consequently "... Drew died without ever being accepted for membership in the AMA."[17]
Blood for Britain
In late 1940, before the U.S. entered World War II and just after earning his doctorate, Drew was recruited by John Scudder to help set up and administer an early prototype program for blood storage and preservation. Here Drew was able to apply his thesis to aid in the blood preservation and transportation. He was to collect, test, and transport large quantities of blood plasma for distribution in the United Kingdom.[18] Drew understood that plasma extraction from blood required both centrifugation and liquid extraction. Each extraction was conducted under controlled conditions to eliminate risk of contamination. Air concealment, ultraviolet light and Merthiolate were all used to mitigate the possibility of plasma contamination.[9]
Plasma transfusion package and extractor used to collect plasma from donors
Drew went to New York City as the medical director of the United States' Blood for Britain project. It was here that Drew helped set the standard for other hospitals donating blood plasma to Britain by ensuring clean transfusions along with proper aseptic technique to ensure viable plasma dispersals were sent to Britain.[12] The Blood for Britain project was a project to aid British soldiers and civilians by giving U.S. blood to the United Kingdom.
Drew created a central location for the blood collection process where donors could go to give blood. He made sure all blood plasma was tested before it was shipped out. He ensured that only skilled personnel handled blood plasma to avoid the possibility of contamination. The Blood for Britain program operated successfully for five months, with total collections of almost 15,000 people donating blood, and with over 5,500 vials of blood plasma.[18] As a result, the Blood Transfusion Betterment Association applauded Drew for his work.
American Red Cross Blood Bank
Drew's work led to his appointment as director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in February 1941. He also invented what would be later known as bloodmobiles, mobile donation stations that could collect the blood and refrigerate it; this allowed for greater mobility in terms of transportation and increased prospective donations.[3] The blood bank supplied blood to the U.S. Army and Navy, who initially rejected the blood of African-Americans and later accepted it only if it were stored separately from that of Whites.[3] Drew objected to the exclusion of African-Americans' blood from plasma-supply networks, and in 1942 he resigned in protest.[19]
Academic achievements
In 1941, Drew's distinction in his profession was recognized when he became the first African-American surgeon selected to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery.[20]
Drew had a lengthy research and teaching career, returning to Freedman's Hospital and Howard University as a surgeon and professor of medicine in 1942. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP in 1944 for his work on the British and American projects. He was given an honorary doctor of science degree, first by Virginia State College in 1945 then by Amherst in 1947.[19]
Personal life
Minnie Lenore Robbins with NIH Director, Donald Frederickson, unveiling of bust and exhibit of her husband, 1981
Beginning in 1939, Drew traveled to Tuskegee, Alabama, to attend the annual free clinic at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital.[23] For the 1950 Tuskegee clinic, Drew drove along with three other black physicians. Drew was driving around 8 a.m. on April 1. Still fatigued from spending the night before in the operating theater, he lost control of the vehicle. After careening into a field, the car somersaulted three times. The three other physicians sustained minor injuries. Drew was trapped with severe wounds; his foot had become wedged beneath the brake pedal.
Despite a popular myth to the contrary, once repeated on an episode ("Dear Dad... Three") of the hit TV series M*A*S*H and in the novels Carrion Comfort and The 480, Drew's death was not the result of his having been refused hospital access because of his race. According to John Ford, one of the passengers in Drew's car, Drew's injuries were so severe that virtually nothing could have been done to save him. Ford added that a blood transfusion might have actually killed Drew sooner.[24][25][26] This myth spread, however, because it was not then uncommon for black people to be refused treatment because there were not enough "Negro beds" available or the nearest hospital only serviced whites.[27]
Numerous schools and health-related facilities, as well as other institutions, have been named in honor of Drew, including the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles.
^Inventions, Mary Bellis Inventions Expert Mary Bellis covered; films, inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years She is known for her independent; documentaries; Alex, including one about; Bellis, er Graham Bell our editorial process Mary. "All About the Inventor of the Blood Bank". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 2021-05-06.
^ Jump up to:abcdTan, Siang Yong; Merritt, Christopher (2017). "Charles Richard Drew (1904–1950): Father of blood banking". Singapore Medical Journal. 58 (10): 593–594. doi:10.11622/smedj.2017099. ISSN 0037-5675. PMC 5651504. PMID 29119194.
Love, Spencie (1996), One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (1997 reprint) ISBN0807846821
Organ, Claude H., editor (1987), A Century of Black Surgeons: The USA Experience, Transcript Press, Vol. I, Asa G. Yancey, Sr., Chapter 2: The Life Of Charles R. Drew, MD, ISBN0961738006.
Schraff, Anne E. (2003), Dr. Charles Drew: Blood Bank Innovator, Enslow, ISBN0766021173
Wynes, Charles E. (1988), Charles Richard Drew: The Man and the Myth, University of Illinois Press, ISBN0252015517
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