Image Ownership: Public Domain Charles Burleigh Purvis, surgeon and medical educator, was instrumental in the development of Howard University’s medical department. On July 2, 1881 Purvis was one of the attending physicians following the assassination of President James A. Garfield. Purvis was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 14, 1842 to abolitionists Robert Purvis Sr. and Harriet Forten. One of eight children, Purvis’ early education was in Quaker schools in Burberry, Pennsylvania. At the age of eighteen he enrolled in Oberlin College in Ohio, earning a bachelor’s degree in science in 1863. He then entered medical school at Wooster Medical College (renamed Western Reserve Medical School) in Cleveland, graduating two years later in 1865. After medicals Purvis enlisted in the Union Army as an acting assistant surgeon. He was stationed at Fort Campbell Army Hospital as both a nurse and a surgeon during the Civil War and was later one of six black physicians posted at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. After his enlistment ended in 1869 he began teaching at Howard University down the street from the hospital.  In 1871 he married Ann Hathaway from Eastport, Maine.  The couple had two children, Alice and Robert. Purvis continued training black … Continue reading Charles Burleigh Purvis (1842-1929)