(In "My Patients Were Zulus," Dr. James McCord tells of th...)
In "My Patients Were Zulus," Dr. James McCord tells of the many exciting events of his professional life in Durban, Africa - for example, of going twenty-five miles into the deepest jungle bush at night on foot to deliver a Zulu baby. He coped with native herbalists, witch doctors, and "smellers-out," who, with a death-hold over the native tribes, smelled for those members of the kraals "with the scent of evil." He performed all types of operations, from appendectomies and removal of tumors to brain surgery - under the most primitive conditions. He fought malaria, scrofula, tuberculosis - and, on occasion, the natives themselves. Commissioned a captain in the Natal Native Horse regiment, McCord helped quell Bambata's Rebellion. For forty years the McCords - James and his devoted wife Margaret - lived an extraordinary life. They revolutionized the relationship between the whites and the Zulus. They built clinics, dispensaries, a training school for nurses, and the now-famous McCord Zulu Hospital in Durban, and inspired a school for Zulu doctors. His life was a continual legal tangle with his professional associates and the white leaders of Durban, who opposed his plans. However, the love and support of his wife, Margaret, and his close friends, like Dr. Alan Taylor and, most of all, the grateful natives, helped him to realize his lifelong dreams, making this one of the inspiring stories of this age.
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James Bennett McCord was born on April 5, 1870 in Toulon, Illinois. His father, Robert L. McCord, was a Congregational minister in Illinois and Iowa, and his mother, Helen D. (Hopkins) McCord, was from an Illinois family prominent in farming and local politics.
McCord was sent to the preparatory department of Oberlin College and later the college, graduating in 1891. While in college he was active in the Student Volunteer Movement; his work in this organization and the encouragement of his fiancée, Margaret Mellon, a fellow student at Oberlin and the daughter of former missionaries to South Africa, led to his interest in serving as a medical missionary in Africa. He studied medicine at Northwestern University and interned at Mercy Hospital in Chicago. After spending a year studying the Zulu language and the cultural background of medical practice among the Zulus, McCord discovered that he could not be registered to practice medicine in Natal without a British medical degree. He therefore spent the next year (1901 - 1902) in England and obtained the necessary degree.
After his marriage on August 14, 1895, McCord practiced medicine in Lake City, Iowa, until the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational) sent him to Natal, South Africa, in 1899. McCord inherited a small hospital at Amanzimtoti (Adams Mission) from his predecessor but found that the inaccessibility of the mission station was a great liability. In 1904 he opened the Beatrice Street Dispensary in Greyville, a section of Durban populated by many Africans, Indians, and people of mixed race. The news of his successful work spread quickly, and people soon came from hundreds of miles away for medical and surgical care. The need for a hospital for nonwhites in Durban was great, but finding a location for one was not easy. Each location that seemed suitable was opposed by nearby whites who feared that a hospital for Africans would endanger their peace and their health. After several court battles, a hospital was established in 1908. It was known at the Mission Nursing Home until 1935 when the name was changed to McCord Zulu Hospital, by which name it is still known. The training of African nurses began soon after, although it was not until 1924 that nurses were permitted to take the examinations for government registration. Courses in midwifery were also offered. During World War I McCord served first in the British army in Natal and then in the American army in the United States. During the latter service he met Dr. Alan B. Taylor and Dr. J. W. Morledge; he enlisted these men in his attempt to provide medical training for Africans. Their efforts were frustrated in the 1920's by the opposition of white doctors. Taylor assumed the super intendency of the hospital, while McCord continued to work at the Beatrice Street Dispensary. Both men carried on the campaign for training Africans as either medical aides or fully qualified doctors.
McCord's final achievement came after death, when the Non-European Medical School of the University of Natal opened in 1951 with Taylor as its acting dean. In spite of the early opposition of many of the whites of Durban, McCord and his wife persisted in publicizing the medical needs of the African people. By the 1930's many prominent businessmen, both white and Indian, were contributors to the hospital. The McCords also worked for higher wages and better treatment for Africans through the Joint Council for Europeans and Non-Europeans, the Institute of Race Relations, the Natal Missionary Conference, and the General Missionary Conference of South Africa.
(In "My Patients Were Zulus," Dr. James McCord tells of th...)
For him, Christian ministry meant not only proclaiming the gospel and healing the sick but also changing the conditions that bred disease (whether the ignorance of traditional Zulu doctors or the unjust laws of the white colonists).
In spite of clashes over policy, McCord was always active in the Durban Medical Society; he also served as its president (1912 - 1914).
As chairman of the American Board Mission in South Africa for many years, McCord was greatly concerned with schools for Africans, and was especially interested in Adams College and Inanda Seminary for Girls. Margaret McCord worked with her husband in all his enterprises, serving as matron of the hospital in its early days and assisting in the operating theater. The McCord home received visitors from all over the world passing through Durban, and she was hostess to all of these, in addition to caring for a family of six children, Jessie, Mary, Robert, Laura, William, and Margaret. Her own early years spent at the Umsunduze Mission Station in Natal enabled her to help many Zulus overcome their fear of hospitals. The love and respect of many Zulu people for the McCords is reflected in the stories, some doubtless apocryphal, told of them in Zulu homes and villages in Natal and Zululand. The African nationalist leaders of John Dube and Albert Luthuli's generation (about 1910 - 1950) counted McCord and some of his missionary colleagues as friends and associates in a common task; some present-day leaders have seen his work only as a part of paternalism and imperialism, but others have been appreciative of the educational and medical opportunities which McCord Zulu Hospital has provided.
In 1940 the McCords retired to Oakham, Massachussets McCord, an enthusiastic chess player, was a founder and champion of the Durban Chess Club. In his later years he participated in the U. S. National Chess Championship and in 1950 was its oldest competitor. McCord died at Oakham, Massachussets, in his sleep and was buried in Pine Grove Cemetery there. From his arrival in South Africa in 1899 until his retirement, McCord actively pursued the goal of better medical care for the Zulu people of Natal and all nonwhites of South Africa.
On August 14, 1895, McCord married Margaret McCord. They had six children.
