- Advocacy
Black History Month: Dr. William Augustus Hinton
Posted on February 1, 2022
The following blog post is authored by Annaliese Collins, a public health major at Muhlenberg College, class of 2023. They are passionate about peer education, community health and wellness, and disease prevention.
Black History Month
Black History Month challenges Americans to learn more about the integral role that Black Americans have in the history of our country.
Some of the most important developments made within the fields of medicine and science were made possible by Black doctors, biologists, professors, researchers, and patients. Families Fighting Flu will be reflecting on the legacies of five Black pioneers in medicine and science. In this post, we highlight Dr. William Augustus Hinton.
Dr. William Augustus Hinton
Dr. William Augustus Hinton (1883-1959) was the first Black Havard professor and the first Black writer to author a published medical textbook. Born to formerly enslaved persons, Augustus Hinton and Maria Clark, Dr. Hinton graduated from Harvard first in 1905 with a bachelor of science degree and then again in 1912 with a medical degree. He was prohibited from becoming a surgeon because of racism and prejudice against him, but he persevered in different fields of medicine.
A bacteriologist, pathologist, and educator, Hinton worked hard to become a respected medical researcher. In his years of research, he developed a less painful Syphilis detection test which was subsequently adopted by the U.S. Public Health Services. The Hinton test was revered for its accuracy and efficiency. Dr. William Augustus Hinton can best be described as “a brilliant thinker, experimentalist and a force for good in the service of humankind.”
