Nurse, Godfrey, 1888-1967.

Godfrey Nurse, a surgeon who practiced in Harlem for over fifty years, was instrumental in the establishment and support of two hospitals in the late 1920's, the Edgecombe Sanitorium and the International Hospital, which provided facilities for black physicians and surgeons when all other New York hospitals were barred to them.

Born in Guyana, Nurse received the M.D. degree in 1914 from the Long Island College of Medicine. In the 1920's he established the Godfrey Nurse Research Laboratory, which was the first clinical laboratory operated by a black person to be certified by the Health Department. As head of the Manhattan Medical Society, composed of black physicians, Nurse was a leader in the successful efforts for the admission of black doctors to Harlem Hospital. In 1956 he donated $100,000 to that hospital for equipment and operation of a laboratory for surgical investigation.

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