Table of Contents
This true tale of 1890s medicine, power, and transformation is told in daily scenes. For the best experience, read them chronologically.
Scene 1: Preface to the Book "Other Possibilities" (Start Here)
Scene 2: Prologue to the Book “Other Possibilities”
Scene 7: Why We’re Still Stuck
Scene 12: How We Organize for Health
Scene 13: Outside the Hospital
Scene 20: On the Shores of a Boundless Sea
Scene 21: Sympathy with my People
Scene 26: Leonard Medical School
Scene 27: The World Was Changing
Scene 29: Organizational Entrepreneurship
Scene 30: We Suffer Much: A Winter in Medical School
Scene 34: The Johns Hopkins That Could Have Been
Scene 36: Josephus Daniels and His Apprentice Hubert
Scene 38: Relief and Joy. Life and Light. To Millions.
Scene 39: The Germ Theory Debate
Scene 40: Protecting the Profession
Scene 44: From 1886 to Today: Why Health Transformation Requires Vision, Patience, and Institutional Change
Scene 46: What the First Black Doctors Teach Us About Change
Scene 48: History’s Warning About Delayed Change
Scene 49: Who is Responsible for the People’s Health?
Scene 50: Imagine a health system driven by health for all, not profits and prestige.
Scene 51: Old North State Medical Society
Scene 53: Rising Deaths From Typhoid
Scene 54: Transformation Starts With Seeds of Relationships and Ideas
Scene 55: The Many Factors that Determine Health
Scene 56: We Are All Capable of Tremendous Good and Tragic Harm. It Is Up to Us.
Scene 58: Love, Devotion, Commitment
Scene 59: The Murder of Charlie Kirk Hit Me Hard
Scene 60: The Reluctance to Change
Scene 61: The Role of Colleges and the Making of Modern Science
Scene 62: "Politics is Nothing More Than Medicine at a Larger Scale" Rudolf Virchow
Scene 65: Dr. Scruggs’ Vision for Health Rooted in Trust and Community
Scene 66: Stir Up Interest Among the People
Scene 68: The Situation is Indeed Gloomy
Scene 69: From Raleigh to the Congo
Scene 70: The Outside World Will Hear From Me Later
Scene 71: Communities Must Answer for the Suffering of Their Citizens
Scene 72: Lawson Scruggs stepped back from hospital work for private practice—only to be drawn quickly into politics.
Scene 73: Treatment for Tuberculosis?!?
Scene 74: The Color of the Skin Can Have No Special Meaning
Scene 76: if the farmers organize a third party, it will result in the division of the Democratic party
Scene 77: Women of Distinction
Scene 78: “My aim is to make an educated, practical, and thoroughly reliable physician, and I am going to strive to make all means subservient to that end.”
Scene 79: Central vs. State Government in Public Health
Scene 80: Our Beautiful City is Buried in Sorrow and Tears
Scene 81: Ida B. Wells and Lawson Scruggs in Chicago
Scene 83: They must be persuaded of the importance of these restraints upon their liberties
Scene 84: Hubert Royster Graduates from Medical School. He is a Doctor.
Scene 85: Miserable Over the Election
Scene 86: “The Fight for the Redemption of the State”
Scene 87: Dr. Scruggs Refocuses His Vision
Scene 88: What it Meant to Be a Surgeon in 1890s Raleigh
Scene 89: Dr. Lawson Scruggs Confronts Daniel Russell and the Politics of Division
Scene 90: St. Augustine’s opened St. Agnes Hospital in 1896, but few Black patients came.
Scene 91: Dr. Lawson Scruggs Confronts Daniel Russell and the Politics of Division
Scene 92: Burgess Builds Community Health; Scruggs Defends Science Against Racism.
Scene 93: James Young’s Rise Deepens Tensions Between Scruggs, Daniels, and the People
Scene 94: There was no summer peak in deaths in 1897. Something changed.
Scene 95: Halsted’s Visit Showcased Modern Surgery
Scene 96: Scruggs and Burgess Turn Vision into Community Health Transformation.
Scene 97: The Hospital Leadership Solidifies
Scene 98: Racial violence and propaganda escalate before North Carolina election
Scene 99: Raleigh’s Black death rates remain low under Scruggs’ health vision
Scene 100: Wilmington Massacre and Coup
Scene 101: Life, for some, went on.
Scene 102: Replacing Community Health with Hospital Treatment
Scene 103: Scruggs Adapts. Royster Ascends in Medicine.
Scene 104: Mandatory Vaccinations for Smallpox
Scene 105: “squash the political power and influence of Black people.”
Scene 106: Dr. Royster is a Leader at the Tri-State Medical Association in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 21, 1900