Charles+Richard+Drew

Early Life  **Charles Richard Drew was born on June 3rd, 1904 to Richard Y. Drew and Nora Burrell in Washington D.C. His sister, Elsie, died during the Influenza epidemic of 1920 having already been suffereing from tuberculosis. Her death is allegedly what encouraged him to study medicine. As a teenager, Drew attended Dunbar High School, a segregated high school accredited with being one of the best public high schools in the nation. That, combined with his skill as an athlete got him a scholarship to Amherst College in Massachussets. After completing school there, he did graduate work at McGill University. He graduated from McGill and did pioneering research on fluid balance within the body at Columbia University from 1938 to 1940, focusing mainly on preserving blood plasma for transfusion.

Important Work

Plasma research was particularly important at the time because of the war that was occuring at the time. Plasma could be preserved for longer than blood could, and it could be transfused without waiting for blood type test results. In 1940, Drew was appointed supervisor of the Blood for Britain program because of his study of blood plasma. The program organized blood donations from New York Hospitals. The plasma was separated from the blood and dried. From there it was put in two tin cans that made storage and exportation to the warfront. A bottle of distilled water came with the preserved plasma. Enough was included to completely restore the dried plasma to its initial form. The plasma would be fresh and ready for use for the next four hours. Drew's main contribution was in changing the test tube method most physicians used to separate blood from plasma to methods that allowed the mass production of plasma in less time. Shortly after being in charge of the Blood for Britain Campaign, Drew was named director of the American Red Cross blood bank and the National Research Council. He argued against the practice of separating blood and plasma by race, claiming that there were no racial differences in blood and that the practice would lead to the pointless death of thousands of soldiers while waiting for plasma transfusions from donors of the same race.

Death**  ** Legend of his death. **   **Despite the fact that the doctors who were with him spoke highly of the treatment he received at the hospital, there is a persistent urban legend that the hospital refused to treat Drew because of his skin color. Some people believe that he bled to death in the hospital.**
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 * Drew represented freedmen at medical conferences, and had attended the free clinic at John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama since 1939. He decided to travel with three other physicians rather than fly to the conference. They took turns driving in shifts. Drew was tired during his shift, and steered the car into a field off the road. The car flipped over three times before coming to rest. The other three doctors only had minor injuries, but drew's leg had become trapped beneath the brake pedal. By the time the ambulance reached the scene of the crash, Drew was in shock and barely alive due to blood loss. He was brought to Alamence General Hospital and treated, only to be pronounced dead a half hour later. He died on April 1st 1950. ** 

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