Lloyd Tevis Miller (December 6, 1872 – March 8, 1951) was an American physician who was the first medical director of the Afro-American Hospital in Yazoo City, Mississippi, the first private hospital for blacks in the state. He was also a co-founder of the Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association.
Lloyd Tevis Miller | |
|---|---|
 Miller in January 1950 | |
| Born | December 6, 1872 Natchez, Mississippi, U.S. |
| Died | March 8, 1951 (aged 78) |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Medical Director of Afro-American Sons and Daughters Hospital (1928–1951), Co-founder of Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | General surgery |
| Institutions | Afro-American Sons and Daughters Hospital |
Early life and education
editMiller was born in Natchez, Mississippi on December 6, 1872, the son of Washington Miller, a hackman (or cabdriver) and his wife, Emily, who worked at the Melrose Mansion in Natchez. He parents sent him to St. Louis for high school. He returned home for undergraduate studies and received his bachelor degree from Natchez College. In 1893, he received his MD from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. As a result of financial support from Howard Coast, the white owner of a mercantile store in Yazoo City, he was encouraged to establish his practice in the wealthy cotton town.[1][2][3][4][5]
Career
editIn 1900, Miller was a co-founder with a dozen other doctors of the Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association (MMSA), the state's largest and oldest organization representing African American health professionals.[2][6]
In 1928, Miller along with local businessman T. J. Huddleston Sr. established the Afro-American Hospital in Yazoo City to provide medical services for members of the Afro-American Sons and Daughters, a statewide fraternal insurance organization that provided death and hospitalization benefits to its members. Miller was chosen as the hospital's first medical director. While the facility's mission was primarily to service its members, it was also available to the general public on a fee for service basis. Given the dearth of quality health care facilities available to blacks at the time, the hospital serviced not only individuals from Yazoo City and the Delta region, but other parts of Mississippi and the South as well. Miller recruited Robert Elliott Fullilove and three registered nurses to complete his staff. During its heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, the facility also operated a state licensed nursing school. By 1950, the hospital had grown to a capacity of 104 beds.[1][2][7]
In 1933, his discovery of a lithopaedion while performing surgery to remove a tumor was reported in the media.[8]
Miller suffered a stroke on December 17, 1950 and died on March 8, 1951. Fullilove succeeded Miller as medical director.[1]
Notes
editMiller's World War I draft card lists his date of birth as December 6, 1874. The 1900 U.S. Census lists his birth as December 1872. The 1880 U.S. Census lists his age as seven, suggesting that December 6, 1872 is the correct birthdate.
References
edit- ^ a b c "Afro-American Hospital (Yazoo City, Miss.) Records [abstract]". Jackson, Mississippi: Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 1935. Archived from the original on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 2009-08-04.
- ^ a b c deShazo, Richard D., ed. (June 30, 2018). The Racial Divide in American Medicine: Black Physicians and the Struggle for Justice in Health Care (First ed.). Jackson, Mississippi: The University of Mississippi Press. pp. xii, 24–26, 176. p. 25:
In 1928 he cofounded the Afro-American Sons and Daughters Hospital with local black insurance businessman T.J. Huddleston, who sold individual bricks to raise money for construction.
- ^
"World War I Draft Registration Card". United States: The Generations Network. 1918.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^
"Tenth Census of the United States (1880) [database on-line], Natchez (1st Ward), Adams County, Mississippi, Enumeration District: 48, Page: 12, Line: 14, household of Washington Miller". United States: The Generations Network. 1880-06-04.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^
"Twelfth Census of the United States (1900) [database on-line], Yazoo City (Beat 3), Yazoo County, Mississippi, Enumeration District: 117, Page: 15A, Line: 17, household of Lloyd T. Miller". United States: The Generations Network. 1900-06-22.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^ "About MMSA". Ridgeland, Mississippi: Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association. Retrieved 2009-08-05.[permanent dead link]
- ^ David T. Beito and Linda Royster beito Let Down Your Bucket Where You Are':The Afro-American Hospital and Black Health Care in Mississippi, 1924-1966,[permanent dead link] Social Science History 30 (Winter 2006), 551-69.
- ^ "Unusual case is treated by colored doctor". Yazoo Herald. Yazoo City, Mississippi. 13 October 1933. p. 1.
Dr. Miller states that he knew there was a growth of some kind in the stomach besides the tumor, and was much surprised after removing the tumor to discover a lithopaedion, a dead foetus (child) that had become petrified to the right of the tumor.