Lottie Isbell Blake

Lottie Cornella Isbell Blake, M.D., (10 June 1876 – 16 November 1976) was an American physician, medical missionary, and educator. Blake was the first black Seventh Day Adventist to become a physician. She is remembered for her revolutionary success in hydrotherapy which at the time was not seen as a sophisticated medical treatment. Lottie Blake, along with her husband Dr. David Emanuel Blake, travelled and worked in Panama, Haiti, and Jamaica as a self-supporting medical missionary. During her life, Dr. Lottie Blake became licensed to practice medicine in Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, Panama, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Blake found the cure for “Smokey City pneumonia” which was caused by smog in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After 50 years of service, Lottie Blake was honored by the American Medical Association at eighty-one years old.

Early life Lottie Isbell Blake was born in Appomattox, Virginia, the daughter of Fannie and Thomas Isbell. When Lottie was three, the Isbell family moved from Virginia to Columbus, Ohio. Thomas Isbell was a carpenter and Fanny Isbell helped to establish the Union Grove Baptist church while raising Lottie and her nine siblings. The Isbell children were raised as Baptists for much of their youth but when Lottie was twenty years old she, her mother, and her sister Mamie converted to become members of the Seventh-day Adventist church.

Education Following high school, Blake went on to receive her teaching certification at age 20. Though she had studied to become a teacher, Blake went on to train and work as a nurse at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek Michigan which was founded by members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, with whom she lived and worked under became a mentor for Blake during her years as a nurse. Encouraged by Dr. Kellogg, Blake then attended medical school. She graduated from the American Medical Missionary College in 1902 at 26 years old, becoming the first black Seventh Day Adventist to become a physician. After an epidemic broke out in an orphanage in Huntsville, Alabama, Blake relocated to work there to help. She later went on to work at the Huntsville Oakwood Manual Training School, now Oakwood University, in Huntsville Alabama, where she was the first black faculty member, with a doctorate, and where she established a nurses training program at Oakwood that is still running today. In 1904, she became a licensed physician in the state of Alabama. After marrying her husband Dr. David Emanuel Blake on September 18, 1907, the couple moved to Nashville, where Lottie reopened the natural treatment rooms at the Rock City Sanitarium, while David was studying medicine at Meharry Medical College. They worked there until David graduated in 1912,

Legacy Dr. Lottie Blake is remembered as a medical missionary, educator, and pioneer of the medical ministry practice. While there were rough patches throughout her time, her service in the medical field was a turning point in the medical field an for African Americans in the south. She was the first black female doctor in Alabama and the first black Seventh-Day Adventist to receive a medical degree. She left behind a legacy of high faith, power in education, and a determination to serve and treat the African American community.