In honor of Black History Month, UNMC Today is highlighting the contributions of African-Americans in medicine. The seven-part series continues today with Louis Tompkins Wright, M.D., whose research with antibiotics paved the way for FDA approval.
Louis Tompkins Wright, M.D., primary investigator for the first human trials of Aureomycin/Terramycin antibiotics
Louis Tompkins Wright, M.D., (1891-1952) graduated from Harvard Medical School, fourth in his class. During his internship at Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., Dr. Wright disproved the accepted medical belief that the Schick test for diphtheria was not useful on blacks because of their dark skin color. He devised new observational techniques that allowed physicians to detect the reddening of skin necessary to judge the test’s results.
During World War I, Dr. Wright served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and introduced the intradermal method of vaccination for smallpox that was adopted by the entire U.S. Army Medical Corps. In 1919, he was appointed clinical assistant visiting surgeon at New York’s Harlem Hospital and became the first black appointed to the hospital medical staff. Four doctors resigned in protest, even though Harlem Hospital was in the middle of the largest black community in North America. In 1928, as the first black appointed to a municipal-hospital position in New York City, Dr. Wright became the first African-American police surgeon in the city’s history.
A determined researcher, he devised a splint for cervical fractures and a special plate for the repair of certain types of fractures of the femur bone. In 1938, his chapter on “Head Injuries” in The Treatment of Fractures was one of the first contributions by an African-American to a major medical text. His most significant contribution to clinical research was as primary investigator on the first tests on humans of the antibiotic Aureomycin. The drug was first isolated in the Lederle Laboratories in 1945 by a former Harvard classmate, who sent Dr. Wright a sample to administer to patients with infections that had resisted all other treatments. The positive results of the Aureomycin tests led to experiments with Terramycin. From 1948 to 1952, Dr. Wright published more than 30 papers on his trials with antibiotics. His research paved the way for these drugs to earn FDA approval for manufacturing and widespread use. (Taken from Macmillan Information Now Encyclopedia: The African-American Experience).