R DREW, Dr Charles
Charlas Richard Drew was born on 3rd June l904 to Richard Y Drew and Nora Burrell in Washingtcn, DC. His mother was a teacher and his father was a carpet layer. As a child, he attended Dunbar High School and won many accolades for his achievements in baseball, basketball and football.
After graduating, Charles Drew attended Amhurst College in Massaschusetts on a scholarship and later became Director at Athletics and Bilology lnstructor at Morgan State Univesity in Baltamore. He attended medical school at McGill University in Montreal and it was here under the supervision of his instructor John Beattie that Charles Drew began his research in blood transfusion. He graduated from McGill University in 1933 and went on to become an instructor in pathology at Howard University Medical School in Washington, DC and was also assistant surgeon at Freedmen’s Hospital.
In 1938 Charles Drew began a residency in surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. It was here that his research led him to discover that blood could be separated into blood plasma and red blood cells and stored for an extended period of time without deteriorating. This discovery was a significant step and worldwide development.
In 1940 Charles Drew received a Doctor of Science degree and was the first African American to be awarded this degree. His thesis was based on Banked Blood.
In 1943 he became the first black examiner for the American Board of Surgeons.
He applied his expert knowledge to develop large- scale blood banks in World War ll. Dr Drew went to New York to direct the United States' Blood for Britain project, the world's first blood bank drive. The Blood for Britain project was a project to aid British soldiers and civilians by giving US blood to Great Britain.¹ His former instructor John Beattie was Director of Research Laboratories at the Royal College of Surgeons based in Westminster. He was in charge of blood transfusions for the Royal Air force and asked Dr Drew to assist him in providing blood. It was here that he became Medical Supervisor of Blood for the UK. This allowed medics to save thousands of lives of the Allied forces.²
Dr Charles Drew met his untimely death following a road traffic accident on 1st April 1950 and died aged 46. The legacy of Dr Charles Drew continues today as his methods ot storing and transfusing blood continues to save lives today.
1. Charles E. Wynes, Charles Richard Drew: The Man and Myth (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988).
2. See 1942 press release "Patent for Preserving Blood Issued November 10, 1942; Washingtonian's invention made blood bank possible".
