Dr. Hill’s Medical Miracle
Luther Leonidas Hill Jr. was born in Montgomery in 1862. The son and grandson of Methodist ministers chose to pursue medicine upon his graduation from Howard College in Marion. His studies took him to the City University of New York and Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical College. Hill then traveled to King’s College Hospital in London to learn under pioneering surgeon Joseph Lister. (Hill would later name his son—Lister Hill, who represented Alabama in Congress for more than four decades—in his mentor’s honor.)
Returning to Montgomery, Hill opened his own surgical practice. In 1900, he published a thorough article on the treatment of heart wounds in the New York Medical Record.
In the small hours of September 15, 1902, Hill was called to assist two local physicians who were trying to save the life of 13-year-old Henry Myrick. The young Black man had suffered a stab wound to his heart and was quickly fading.
Although he was an expert on the history of treating wounds of the heart, until that day Hill had never before operated on the vital organ. Assisted by three physicians, Hill performed a careful 45-minute procedure that opened the young man’s chest, drained pooled blood from the pericardial sack and repaired the damaged left ventricle. By the light of a lantern, Dr. Hill performed one of the first successful repairs of a human heart.
The medical profession learned of the feat from Hill himself. In November 1902, the New York Medical Record published his three-page account of the procedure.
Hill retired from his practice in 1931 and died in 1946. In 1959, the University of Alabama at Birmingham established a heart center named in his honor.
— Scotty Kirkland
Whereville, Alabama
Identify and place this Alabama landmark and you could win $25! Winner is chosen at random from all correct entries. Multiple entries from the same person will be disqualified. Send your answer with your name, address and the name of your rural electric cooperative, if applicable. The winner and answer will be announced in the December issue.
Submit by email: [email protected], or by mail: Whereville, 340 Technacenter Drive, Montgomery,
AL 36117.
Contribute a photo you took for an upcoming issue! Send a photo of an interesting or unusual landmark in Alabama, which must be accessible to the public. A reader whose photo is chosen will also win $25.
October’s answer: This white marble abstract sculpture, displayed on a bed of raw marble fragments and chippings, stands outside the Isabel Anderson Comer Museum & Arts Center in Sylacauga. The Talladega County city is known as the “Marble City” for its high-grade locally quarried white marble. (Photo by Allison Law of Alabama Living) The randomly drawn correct guess winner is Phyllis Givens of Wiregrass EC.
