The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1910-12-02
FEssIoN.

New York City, N. Y. Nov. 29-In
the spacious Engineers Society Hall.
and in the presence of one of the
most noted audiences ever assembled
in this city, DR.. f. A. Stewart. of
Nashville, Tenn, who appeared on the
program at meeting held in the in
terest of Fisk University, told in well
chosen words what the needs OF the
Negros of the South are from medi-
cal point of view. In a five minutes
talk he said among other thing:
The work of educating Negro physi-
clans was begun in 1863 at that time
many people doubted the ability of the
Negro to become skilled surgeons, and
successful practitioners of medicine.
During the first years of this work
the educational requirements for the
study of medicine were low, and as
a result a considerable number of men
were graduated who had received
little or no training. Fisk Univer-
sity and other schools for the higher
education of the Negro were in their
infancy. and few were properly pre-
pared to begin the study of medicine.
However the requirements for admis
sion to Negro Medical Schools have
been gradually raised until now at
least four years high school course
or its equivalent is emanded and a
college course is urgently recJm-
mended The result is that we are
now graduating each year from our
medical schools not a few physicians
who are splendidly equipped for their
work. Many of these have received
their preliminary training at Fisk Uni
versity. We have a few Negro sur,
geons in the south who are doing all
classes Of surgical work and who by
their skill are addind hundreds of
years to human life. We need many
more such men.
The competent Negro physician in
the south is growing daily to be more
OF a necessity because as the peo-
pie grow in intelligence, they demand
better service of their medical ad-
visors, and also for the larger reason
that plost white physicians who are
best prepared for their work have
neither the time nor the desire to do
the practice of Negroes. do not
mean by this, that they are not kindly
disposed towards the Negro physi-
clans; for their treatment by the
white physicians of the south has
been excellent. AS rule they have
been well received, kindly treated,
and assisted When ever they needed
aid.
Frequently it has been stated that
colored men who have had a college
training or have taken a professional
course of study do not make good use
in after life of the educational privi-
iges they have enjoyed, and that many
of them may be found working as
BARRIERS, or serving as walters or Pull
man porters Most of our men who
are seen in such places are students
who are trying to earn, in an honor
able way, money, with which to COM
plete their education, ninety-five per
cent of the graduates of Fisk Univer-
sity are positively helping to elevate
the masses by serving in some pro-
fessional capacity.
While Fisk and other institutions
are graduating a considerable number
of young people each year the num-
ber is very small when compared with
the demand.
1t is estimated that there are now
eight million of colored people living
in the Southern states, and that there
are about sixteen hundred Negro
Physicians to minister to them or
one physician to five thousand of his
people, whereas among the white race
there is one physician to every
FIVE hundred of the population The
largo citins and towns of the South