life, the Negro has proved to be very susceptible to certain diseases such as tuberculosis and related maladies. Thus in the areas for which statistics are available the death rate among Negroes from tuberculosis has been three times as great as that for white people, and this has not included some of the most populous Negro sections of the country. Other diseases have reaped their entirely disproportionate totals, and the cost in unnecessary suffering and economic loss has been incalculable. The lives of multitudes of Negro babies have been and are sacrificed upon the altars of ignorance. Fortunately the figures, in the areas where records are available, now record a steady improvement, and this progress is a direct result of the efforts to elevate the living standards of the Negro and of the special attention given to training Negroes in the care of their own bodies.

BEGINNINGS

The first Negro physician in the United States was James Derham. He was born a slave in Philadelphia. He was given some education and was employed in compounding medicines. Eventually he purchased his freedom, moved to New Orleans, and there built up a successful and lucrative practice. James McCune Smith was also a prominent Negro physician in ante-bellum days. He was unable to enter a medical school in the United States, so he went to Scotland and there obtained a medical education. He returned to America, and practiced

medicine in New York city for twenty-five years. He is said to have been the first colored man to establish a pharmacy in the United States. In 1854 Dr. John V. DeGrasse was admitted in due form as a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society. He was the first Negro to become a member of a medical association. To-day there are nearly sixty regularly organized medical associations in the United States made up of Negroes. The census of 1910 reported 3,777 Negro physicians in the United States, 478 Negro dentists, and 2,433 Negro trained nurses.

MEHARRY MEDICAL COLLEGE, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

In this rapid development of Negro medical education which has occurred during the last half century Meharry Medical College has played a most important, if not the leading, role. This school, organized in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1876, had, up until January, 1921, graduated a total of 2,467 Negro doctors, dentists, and pharmacists, 2,147 of whom were still living. Of the graduates 1,704 were from the Medical, 479 from the Dental, and 284 from the Pharmaceutical Department. At the date indicated the current enrollment of the college in these various departments was, Medical Department 200, Dental 344, Pharmaceutical 106.

BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT

The school, originally organized as a department of Central Tennessee College (later Walden Uni

versity), is still located on its original site in the city of Nashville. The buildings and equipment have, however, been materially increased. At present there are a medical building; a dental building, which is also used to house the Pharmaceutical Department; a commodious and well-appointed hospital, known as the George W. Hubbard Hospital; the Anderson Anatomical Hall, the gift of a previous graduate; the Meharry Auditorium; and now the proposed removal of the Walden School to a new location will make available for the use of Meharry some of the buildings previously occupied by Walden, and also provide room for further expansion.

ENDOWMENT

Meharry Medical College and its associated Dental and Pharmaceutical Colleges have been supported chiefly from the proceeds of tuition and from appropriations made by the Freedmen's Aid Society, now known as the Board of Education for Negroes. So great a school could not, however, go on permanently without endowment. Fully conscious of this fact, the Board approached the Carnegie Foundation and the General Education Board, and each of these organizations, after a thorough investigation of the history and work of Meharry, agreed to contribute $150,000 for endowment provided the Board of Education for Negroes would raise $200,000 to add to the fund. Fortunately the Centenary of Methodist Missions was at hand,

and, out of the income guaranteed to the Board of Education for Negroes, the $200,000 was provided. Thus Meharry now has available a little more than a half million dollars in endowment funds. The task is not completed, however, for Meharry cannot be rated as a "Class A" medical school until this endowment is doubled. The other conditions for this rating could be met with relatively little difficulty, if the endowment funds could be made available. This matter has now become a primary one in connection with the future usefulness of Meharry. It must be remembered that in every State Negro doctors must take the same examinations and measure up to the same requirements as white doctors before they are permitted to practice medicine. In some States already graduates of "Class B" medical schools are not even permitted to take the examinations. Only recently two urgent requests came in almost the same mail to Meharry for Negro physicians. In neither of these States is a graduate of a "Class B" school permitted to take the State examination. Meharry's future is largely in the hands of those who have the resources to help relieve this embarrassing situation.

GEORGE WHIPPLE HUBBARD, M.D.

The story of Meharry can never be told without that of Dr. George W. Hubbard, who organized the school in 1876 and remained its executive head

for forty-four years. His resignation took effect February 1, 1921, and he became President Emeri