C. B. Purvis, 1887. African-American doctor Charles Burleigh Purvis was the first black physician to treat a sitting president when he attended James Garfield after he was shot by an assassin in 1881. He was surgeon-in-charge of the Freedmen's Hospital, and the first black person to serve on the Washington D. C. Board of Medical Examiners, as well as being a leading activist in civil rights and universal suffrage movements. From "Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising" by William J. Simmons.

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