Chapter 29

Dr. R. F. Boyd has clearly demonstrated by energy, pluck, ability and upright dealing with his fellowman, the possibility of rising from poverty's hard estate to honor's golden prize. Dr. R. F. Boyd was born and partly reared on a farm in Giles County, Tennessee, where he learned to hoe, to plow, to reap and to mow. When quite a boy he worked for the famous surgeon, Dr. Paul F. Eve, in Nashville, and attended as best he could night school in the old Fisk buildings on Knowles street. He taught his first school at College Grove, Tennessee. The Doctor would teach a school and at its close re-enter Fisk University or Central Tennessee College. In 1882 he graduated from Meharry Medical College, with the degree of M. D. He went to Mississippi and taught a high school at New Albany and practiced his profession till the fall of 1882, when he re-entered the Central Tennessee College to complete his college course, receiving at the same time an adjunct Professorship in Chemistry at Meharry and made teacher of Physiology and Hygiene in Central Tennessee by which he was able to pay his college expenses. In 1883 he was made Professor of Physiology in Meharry, which position, together with a position in the Literary Department, he held till he graduated from the College Department of Central Tennessee College, in 1886. In 1887 he graduated from the Dental Department of Meharry, receiving the degree of D. D. S., teaching in the school at the same time. In June, 1887, he opened his office in Nashville, where so many had tried and failed. In 1888 Dr. Boyd was made Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Meharry; in 1890 he attended the Post-graduate School of Medicine at Chicago, from which he received a diploma. In 1890 he was made Professor of Hygiene, Physiology and Clinical Medicine, which position he held until 1893, when he was made Professor of the Diseases of Women and Clinical Medicine, which chair he still holds. In 1892 he took a special course in the Post-graduate Medical School and Hospital of Chicago, on the diseases of women and children, among whom the greater portion of his practice is. One of the greatest needs of the colored people in the South is well regulated hospitals, where trained nurses can handle and care for the sick under skilled physicians. Until Mercy Hospital was instituted, there was no place of this kind in the South. It was Dr. R. F. Boyd who established and instituted this the largest and most complete hospital owned and controlled by colored people. There surgeons of our race do all kinds of operations and trained and graduate nurses of the race care for the sick under their management.

It is in this institution where the graduates of Meharry in the Medical and Nurse-Training Departments get their practical work. It is the great center to which colored physicians of the South may send cases to be operated upon by skilled physicians and handled by trained nurses. The death rate of this institution has been less than three per cent from all causes.

Besides this work, Dr. Boyd has taken a great interest in secret societies. As an Immaculate, he has gained a National reputation and has filled nearly all of the offices in the Supreme Lodge. As a Pythian he has served the Grand Lodge as Grand Medical Register, and has been honored by the Supreme Lodge as Supreme Medical Register, and is Surgeon General of the Military or Uniform Rank of that Order. The Ancient United Sons and Daughters of Africa is a creation of his own brain and he is at present Supreme Secretary of that Order. As a business man he ranks among the foremost of the race. He owns some of the best realty of the city, among which is the Boyd Building, 417-419-421-423 Cedar Street. This building has four business fronts, a hotel and restaurant, offices of various kinds and four large society halls, in which about forty societies meet. The Mercy Hospital was purchased by him solely, at a cash value of $6,000. Besides this he is the owner of other valuable property of Nashville and suburbs.

This is a question of vital importance to us as a race and to the nation as well. Much thought has been given to it by the best thinkers of both races and many articles have been written by friend and foes. All kinds of solutions have been proposed and yet the great death-rate goes on. In the larger cities of the South our people die from two to three times as fast as the whites.

The number of premature deaths is on the increase; the infant death-rate is appalling; and consumption, a hitherto unknown disease among our people, is credited with one-fourth the victims of all ages.

All the powers of science and art are being taxed to the utmost to afford a complete solution to this problem. Every large city in the South is being awakened to the sense of the importance of this subject. And well they may; for the ignorance, the vice, the poverty, the habitation and the food that cause this alarming death-rate effect the whole community.

A proper knowledge and observance of the laws of health will give happiness to all.

Man is as subject to the organic laws as the inanimate bodies about him are to mechanical and chemical laws, and we as little escape the consequences of the neglect or violation of these natural laws, which affect the organic life, through the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothes we wear, and the circumstances surrounding our habitation, as the stone projected from the hand, or the shot from the mouth of the cannon can escape the bounds of gravitation.

What we need is the gospel of the physical health to be preached from every pulpit, and in every school room and in every home. All strong motives of religion and the eternal world are taught from the pulpit and the Sunday school to enforce certain duties that are no more important to the well-being of man than the laws of health, which are so widely disregarded. These laws are God's laws as truly as any inscribed by Him on the Table of Stones.

The boards of health of our cities prescribe rules and regulations to insure the peace and happiness of the individual and the longevity of life which must apply to all in order that they might live out the expected term of life. What is the natural term of life? Physiologists have fixed it at a hundred years. Florens at five times the time required to perfectly develop the skeleton. David says: "The days of man's life are three score years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet indeed is his strength labor and sorrow."

Under modern hygienic rules and regulations the days of man have been increased in civilized countries. Carefully prepared statistics show that while the maximum age has not increased in many centuries, the number of persons who survive infancy and reap a ripe old age is greatly increased.

According to the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of New York City, civilization largely interferes with the laws of evolution, by survivorship and by encouraging the waste which arises from it. We know that a human being soundly constituted continues in good health until he reaps a ripe old age, provided certain conditions are observed and no injurious accident befall him.

We might learn a lesson from the early Jews, or the ancient Greeks or Romans, if we had at our command statistics of their mortality. Doubtless they had a small death-rate! For they were strong and vigorous and observed the laws of hygiene. When these laws are properly observed, they decrease mortality and bring about greater health, comfort and happiness to the individual and to the country at large. Those who would preserve health in themselves and in the community in which they live, who would reap the greatest benefits of earth, and live out the appointed time, must strictly conform to these essentials:

1. A constant supply of pure air.

2. Cleanliness of person and surroundings.

3. Sufficient nourishing food properly prepared and properly taken.

4. Sufficient exercise of the various organs of the body.

5. The proper amount of rest and sleep.

6. Right temperature.

7. Proper clothing.

8. Sufficient, cheerful, innocent enjoyment.

9. Exemption from harassing cares.

Conform strictly to these rules and all avoidable disease will be annihilated. On the other hand, where hygienic and sanitary science is not enforced, filth, decay and putrifying matter is sure to accumulate. In this we have suitable material for the propagation of disease germs, which cause all communicable and contagious diseases. These minute organisms exist in the atmosphere everywhere, and multiply by their own peculiar method of procreation; such as filth, heat and moisture.

A population under the influence of vice, poverty, filth, debauchery, foul air, poorly prepared food and crowded dwellings, or in low, damp localities, with no rule regulating their eating or sleeping, clothing or exercise, is sure to have a great degree of mortality.

With our thorough knowledge of how to prevent epidemics, most of the diseases that enter the body through the respiratory, digestive, cutaneous, circulatory, nervous, and genito-urinary systems should be less frequent. Taking the facts which I have here given into account one may see that not only do health and longevity depend upon laws which we can understand and successfully operate, but man has it in his power to modify to a great extent the circumstances in which he lives, with a view to the promotion of his well-being and preservation.

We know that the draining of a marsh pond banishes malaria; a change from the city to the country reinvigorates, and that those who live in the high, well drained portions of our cities have the smallest degree of mortality and that the greater comforts possessed by the affluent secure for them longer life than the poor who are not so favored. To diminish the mortality in the Southern cities will depend upon both the individual and social efforts as well as upon the public measures of the legally constituted authorities.

The dirty neglected portions of our city where refuse and rubbish, animal and vegetable matters are deposited and allowed to rest and send up their poisonous odors from house to house, must be looked after. The dwellings of our people must be improved. The old, dilapidated stables, in the narrow, filthy alleys; the low, damp basements and dark cellars, often below the ground, with an insufficiency of both light and air; the clusters of homes built in the bottom and low places, closely pent up, back to back so as to prevent ventilation with only one entrance to each, and a privy between; the over-crowded conditions of these uninhabitable quarters and the quality of the food taken by those who live in these disgraceful dwellings must be looked after.

Habits of living must be corrected and a crusade against ignorance and vice begun by society. I don't think I would miss it very far when I say that one-third of the colored people in our cities live in just such dwellings as I have described here; while most of the white population live in well-built houses in the healthy portions of the cities. Is there any surprise that there should be so great a disproportion in the mortality of the races? Compare the statistics of all the large cities and you will find that under similar conditions, this same proportion in mortality exists in the Northern and foreign cities, where the food and dwelling of the poor have the same difference. But this same difference exists nowhere in the world as it does in the South. It is almost impossible for a colored man to rent a respectable house anywhere in the cities; but the dark, low, damp, confined, ill-ventilated cellars and alley houses are rented for as much as comfortable quarters ought to bring. I don't wonder that the mortality of the Negro is so great; but I do wonder that it is not greater. Any other race of people would have been exterminated in twenty years.

The remedy for the high death-rate is the enactment, and enforcement of laws against allowing the people to sleep in basements, cellars, old stables, alley houses, in low malarial sections of the cities, and making the penalty against the landlords so great, that they will not rent such places for dwellings. Regulate the kind of tenement houses and the number of persons who shall sleep in one room, the kind of food and rules for its preparation; break up these late church meetings in poorly ventilated houses, and the problem will be solved.

The infant mortality will be reduced one-half when our people learn that the care of a good conscientious physician is necessary, from generation to development, and through the entire stage of adolescence; not so much to cure, as to prevent disease. Our whole system of medicine is now turning upon prevention rather than cure. When the public is educated up to the point of paying physicians to prevent as well as cure diseases, then, there will be less sickness and fewer epidemics.

Then sanitary science, under the strict observance of hygiene, will reach perfection; the rude, gross habits of living will be corrected; a system of perfect drainage and ventilation will be inaugurated; pure air and fresh water supply will be furnished to every public and private house; only pure, unadulterated foods will be on the markets; every hotel, private and boarding-house will furnish properly prepared diets, and universal cleanliness will be the law.

Last, but by no means least, I call your attention to another most potent remedy for the diminishing of the great mortality of the race in the South. Besides the city hospitals, the whites have many other hospitals and infirmaries, supported by church and benevolent organizations where those that pay are at the hospitals because they can receive the constant attention of a physician and nurse. We need and should have such hospitals. The benevolently disposed people, the churches and societies of the cities could establish and well support them. In them, there would be pay wards and charitable wards. Each church and society supporting the hospitals could send their indigent sick to the charity wards and those who can pay, to the private apartments.

These hospitals would afford a much needed opportunity for young women of the race to prepare for trained nurses and afford better facilities for the physicians to practice surgery and study remedies.

We have established in the city of Nashville, the Mercy Hospital under the care and management of the Board of Trustees, composed of some of the best citizens and heads of our great universities. Among the directors are, Hon. J. C. Napier, President; W. T. Hightower, Treasurer; Dr. G. W. Hubbard, Dean of Meherry Medical College; Dr. P. B. Guernsey, President of Roger Williams University; Prof. H. H. Wright, Fisk University, and Dr. R. H. Boyd, President of the National Baptist Publishing Board.

The hospital is located at 811 S. Sherry street, Nashville, Tenn., in one of the most quiet, beautiful and healthful localities of the city. The site is high and well drained; the building large and commodious and up-to-date in all its apartments. There are two large wards; one for male and one for female, and private rooms, to which good pay patients are assigned where they will come in contact with no one but their physician and the nurse.

In this hospital great care is given to surgical work of all kinds and especially to abdominal surgery and gynecology. Colored physicians all over the South may send or bring their surgical cases here and get every advantage that can be provided by the best first-class hospitals and infirmaries all over the country. We have the best graduate-trained nurses in constant attendance and the resident physicians are men of the race who have made marvelous progress for two decades in all branches of their work.

Since the establishment of the hospital we have had a record of which few similar institutions can boast. During the first year we have had more than 140 surgical cases, including abdominal section and other major operations and yet the death-rate was less than 3 per cent from all causes.

Our operating room is well appointed, with an abundance of sunlight by day and gas light at night. Many of the physicians of the South have sent us cases for which we are very grateful. We have had cases from Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, Missouri, Florida, and Georgia. Until the other cities of the South are able to afford the facilities and accommodations and the skill and experience of the Mercy Hospital we feel that it is the duty and should be the great pleasure of every colored physician to send his surgical cases to this hospital. I consider this one of the great factors to solve this vexed problem.

The causes of the great mortality among the Negroes of the large cities of the South are due to ignorance; vice; debauchery; poor food, illy prepared; unsanitary environments; their habitation in the over-crowded tenement houses; in old stables; damp cellars; and low, damp sections and in narrow, filthy alleys, where the foul air, improper nourishment, poor ventilation and the want of personal cleanliness, furnish the proper condition for the development of disease and death. Correct these conditions and educate the people up to a thorough knowledge of and a strict compliance of the laws of health and the problem is solved. The death-rate among our people will not only be lessened, but I believe the Negro will outlive any other people on earth.

SIXTH PAPER.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF THE GREAT MORTALITY AMONG THE NEGROES IN THE CITIES OF THE SOUTH, AND HOW IS THAT MORTALITY TO BE LESSENED?

BY HENRY R. BUTLER, A. M., M. D.

HENRY R. BUTLER, A. M., M. D.

Dr. Butler was born in Cumberland county, North Carolina, April 11, 1862. His early life was spent on the farm, during which time he received at odd times three months' free school instruction.

In 1874 his parents moved to Wilmington; there he worked in saw mills, lumber yards, with the cotton compresses and as a stevedore. He spent his nights studying under Prof. E. E. Green, now Dr. E. E. Green of Macon, Ga. January 3, through the assistance of his instructor, he entered Lincoln University, Pa., and was graduated June 18, 1887, receiving the degree of A. B.; October, the same year, he matriculated in Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn., graduating with the degree of M. D. February 27, 1890. The same year the degree of A. M. was conferred on him by Lincoln University. While at Nashville he won the H. T. Noel gold medal for proficiency in operative surgery and dissecting. He arrived in Atlanta March, 1890, and began the practice of medicine. He was one of the organizers of the first drug store owned and operated by colored men in Georgia. It was known as Butler, Slater & Co. He was organizer and first president of the Empire State Medical Association of colored physicians. He was appointed surgeon of the Second Georgia Battalion, colored volunteers, in 1891, with rank of first lieutenant, by the Honorable W. J. Northern, then governor.

May 5, 1893, he married Miss Salina May Sloan of Atlanta, a graduate of Spellman Seminary, who has been a most faithful, loving and helpful companion. He took a special course in the diseases of children in 1894 at the Harvard School of Medicine, Boston, Mass. In 1895, in the same school he took a special course in surgery. November 1, 1900, H. R. Butler, Jr. came, adding new blessings and happiness to his home and life. Dr. Butler is the first and so far the only colored man to be a regular contributor to the great Southern daily, _The Atlanta Constitution_. He has held that position since 1895. He was three years president of the Y. M. C. A. of colored men. He was four years physician and surgeon in charge at Spellman Seminary, and is now holding a similar position in Morris Brown College, and is organizing a nurse training department to that institution. He owns some valuable real-estate, besides a beautiful home on Auburn avenue. He has a large and lucrative practice. He is Grand Master of Masons of the Jurisdiction Georgia, is grand Medical Register of the Knights of Pythias. His life is truly full, every moment of his time is taken.

The causes of excessive mortality among the colored people in Southern cities are _said_ to be _many_ and have been discussed from just as many points of view by students of the social status of this people.

But after several years of professional service among these colored people, which service gave me an opportunity to more closely study them, their faults, habits, needs, methods of living and their knowledge of hygiene and its laws, I have calmly reached the conclusion that the want of money is the main cause of the excessive mortality of this people. It is true that there are several minor causes, _but all_ have their origin in the one mentioned.

Among the most prominent of these _minor_ causes may be mentioned _Ignorance_ and _Poverty_. Let us briefly consider the first of these.

The colored people have made wonderful progress in the acquirement of knowledge since emancipation, and this improvement has played no small part in reducing their excessive death-rate. Yet from this height we look down and see the great masses of these people still held in the death-like grip of _ignorance_. To these, education has taken no knowledge of clean homes, pure air, ventilation, soap and water and other things conducive to good health. These are they who to-day are falling so rapidly before the great reaper, _death_.

It is a truth known to the profession, health departments and students of this subject that most of the deaths of the great human family occur between birth and the ages of five years. The children of the colored race are not an exception to the above statement.

If the children of the intelligent, good, better and best die fast, it stands to reason that those of the ignorant, bad and poor would die even faster, and this is just what I have found to be the case.

Ofttimes, among the lowly masses, ignorance is the first to take charge of the babies at birth; it sticks a slice of fat meat in their innocent little mouths immediately after birth; it rocks the cradle; it fills their little stomachs with all kinds of decoctions, of teas and whiskies to bring out the "hives;" yea, ignorance feeds these little ones on all kinds of solid foods before they are able to digest them, until it finally feeds the grave with the bodies of its little victims.

Even when manhood and womanhood are reached, _ignorance_, _ghost-like_, stands forbidding the ventilation and cleaning of homes; it says: "It's too cold to bathe;" it sends men and women to bed in wet and damp clothes and does many other acts that multiply the graves in the old church-yard on the hill.