Dr. Drew had been a student and protégé' of Dr. John Scudder, an assistant professor of clinical surgery at Columbia University who was achieving national recognition for his research findings relating to body fluids. Dr. Scudder had been asked to give overall direction to the Plasma for Britain Project. Dr. Drew had come to Dr. Scudder's attention two years earlier, when he arrived at Columbia to study under the medical educator.
Early in 1940, Dr. Drew prepared a 200 page thesis entitled "Banked Blood," which further alerted Dr. Scudder to the keen mind and talents of his pupil. The Columbia professor said the thesis was "a masterpiece one of the most distinguished essays ever written, both in form and content."

Hallmarks of a Scientist
Later Dr. Scudder was to say of his protégé: "Dr. Drew was naturally great a keen intellect coupled with a retentive memory in a disciplined body, governed by a biological clock of untold energy. A personality altogether charming, flavored with mirth and wit, stamped him as my most brilliant pupil. He had a flare for organization and attention to detail; he was a physician who insisted upon adequate control in his experiments. These were the hallmarks of a budding scientist."

Charles Drew was born in Washington, D.C., June 3, 1904. In his youth he seemed headed for a career in athletics and the coaching field rather than for medicine, starring as a four letter man in Dunbar High School, Washington. He went on to study at Amherst College, where his prowess in track and football won him the annual Mossman trophy as the athlete who brought the highest honor to his school.

After graduation, Charles Drew was a coach and a biology and chemistry instructor at Morgan State College, Baltimore, Maryland. But a turning point in his life was at hand. It had become his ambition to enter the field of medicine. He resigned his job at Morgan State and went to Montreal, Canada, where he enrolled in McGill University's Medical School. There he was granted two fellowships and was awarded his doctorate of medicine and master of surgery degrees.

For two years following graduation, Dr. Drew was an intern and resident in Montreal hospitals. In 1935, he returned to the United States to accept an appointment as instructor in pathology at the College of Medicine of Howard University in Washington, D.C. During the next two years, he advanced to become assistant professor of surgery.

Dr. Drew showed such promise in his work at Howard University that in 1938, at a time when war clouds were gathering over Europe, he was recommended for one of the Rockefeller fellowships at Columbia aimed at promoting advanced training in all fields of medicine. It was through this fellow ship that he met Dr. Scudder and began study under him.

From Laboratory Experiments to Mass Production
Although the blood collection points for the Plasma for Britain Project were at eight different New York hospitals, the central location for the operation was set up in the Presbyterian Hospital. There tests and findings were carried out on blood composition and its preservation. There also, Dr. Drew worked primarily in a successful effort to turn laboratory experiments and the blood research done by others into mass production of plasma for shipment to the British Isles. For example, on learning that the British had successfully modified an ordinary cream separator to separate plasma from the red cells in blood, Dr. Drew ordered two of the modified machines rushed to New York from England and then had similar equipment constructed in the United States so that he could produce the clear plasma on a large scale. Before that time, some New York hospitals in the project had used small centrifuges to separate the plasma, while others were making the separation by the natural process of permitting the blood to sit for several days until the red blood cells settled to the bottom of the collection vessels.

Dr. Drew thus took the successful laboratory experiments of many blood researchers and transformed their test tube methods into mass production techniques.
When Hitler's much publicized invasion did not materialize, it was decided to terminate the Plasma for Britain Project. Dr. Drew had emerged, however, as a leading authority on mass transfusion and processing methods.
By this time it had become apparent that America probably would be drawn into the war. Military authorities in the United States were concerned with the need for a stockpile of blood reserves if hostilities should begin.
After discussions with medical leaders and the American Red Cross, the government asked the Red Cross to establish a pilot program similar to the Plasma for Britain Project but on a smaller scale. The pilot center was set up through the Red Cross chapter in New York City and began operation in February 1941.

Again the Presbyterian Hospital was the site, and because of his special knowledge Dr. Drew was selected to serve as medical supervisor of the operation during its initial stages. The final product was to be dried plasma rather than the earlier liquid form that was sent to England. In dry form, plasma could be preserved for relatively long periods and administered under battlefield conditions. The outgrowth of this project was the American Red Cross Blood Donor Service during World War II.

An Outstanding Contribution
In April 1941, Dr. Drew returned to Howard University, where he gained new distinction, particularly in the training of young surgeons. He had spent a total of seven months in the two blood projects, yet in this very brief but productive period of his professional life, he made an outstanding contribution to what was to become a highly successful World War II blood procurement effort.

After Dr. Drew's return to Howard, he was appointed to several scientific committees and received honorary degrees from Virginia State and Amherst Colleges in 1945 and 1947. He was one of the first of his race to be selected for membership on the American Board of Surgery. He also received the Spingarn Medal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1944 for his outstanding contribution to human welfare.

Mankind suffered a great loss in 1950 when, at the age of 45, Dr. Drew was killed in an automobile accident while driving to a scientific conference. His pioneering medical work has endured. How many lives have been saved because of his genius at turning basic biological research into practical production methods is impossible to determine. But it is a certainty that mankind owes a debt of gratitude to the man Dr. Scudder called "naturally great."
Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson, former president of Howard University, accurately described the life of Dr. Drew when he said, "Here we have what rarely happens in history, a life which crowds into a handful of years significance so great, men will never forget it."

Dr. Drew was married in 1939 to Minnie Lenore Robbins, and they had four children, Bebe Roberta, Charlene Rosella, Rhea Sylvia, and Charles Richard, Jr. The experience gained through Dr. Drew's efforts at the New York center proved invaluable, and during World War II 35 such centers were in operation.

By war's end, millions of donations had been received by the Red Cross, donations that made possible the saving of thousands of lives of wounded U.S. servicemen lives that would have been lost in earlier wars when blood therapy was unknown.

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