Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler: A Doctress of Medicine Against the Odds, Part 2 of 2

Moving back to Virginia in 1865 was a massive act of courage. There, Rebecca saw an opportunity to serve communities in urgent need. She later wrote that it was: “… the proper field for real missionary work, and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children.” Despite the enormous obstacles she faced in her self-described “mission,” Dr. Crumpler persevered in serving countless patients and inspired many other African Americans to pursue careers in medicine.

Her 1883 publication, “A Book of Medical Discourses – In Two Parts,” was compiled from several decades’ worth of notes that Dr. Crumpler made in a medical journal, as well as practically a lifetime of hands-on experience and personal observation. Dedicated “to mothers, nurses, and all who may desire to mitigate the afflictions of the human race,” adding, “This book is prayerfully offered.” The work is filled with numerous medical instances pertinent to all 19th-century women who were usually the ones responsible for the care of their own infants, not just African Americans. The book presents practical medical guidance written in accessible language. Chapter topics range from “The Present Modes of Washing and Dressing the New-Born” to “Complications of Teething with Diseases.”

Dr. Crumpler was firmly against the use of alcohol and opium-based treatments, particularly for children. She therefore included her “Formula For Making Doctress Crumpler’s Vegetable Alternative,” which she recommended not only as a remedy for colds or bloating, but also to help people withdraw from addictive substances – what she called the “morbid craving for tobacco, alcoholic beverages, or other blood poisoning idols.”

Dr. Crumpler served the community of Boston for over a decade, primarily in the late 1860s and 1870s, often treating those who could not pay – all while she herself faced persistent racial and gender-based discrimination. Doctress Rebecca Lee Crumpler passed away in 1895, in Boston, at the age of 64. For over a century, her legacy was largely obscured, and she lay in an unmarked grave in Hyde Park. Her story began to resurface in 1989 with the formation of the Rebecca Lee Society, and in 2020, thanks to a dedicated fundraising campaign by the “Friends of the Hyde Park Library,” a headstone was finally placed to honor the first African American “Doctress of Medicine” and her husband, Arthur.