Infographic detailing Solomon Carter Fuller's life and his involvement in discovering Alzheimer's disease.

1. SOLOMON CARTER
FULLER, MD.
Solomon Carter Fuller worked with Dr. Alois
Alzheimer and was crucial in identifying
Alzheimer’s disease in 1906.
Alzheimer’s disease affects half of all
adults aged 85 and over, and 1 in 10 aged
65 and over, and is the most common
form of dementia.
C E L E B R AT I N G B L A C K
H I S T O R Y M O N T H
Born in 1872 in Monrovia, Liberia, Dr. Fuller
was the grandchild of former Virginia slaves
who bought their freedom and emigrated to
Liberia to establish a colony of freed slaves.
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Sources:
www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/fuller-solomon-carter-1872-1953/
www.wbaltv.com/article/dr-solomon-carter-fuller-discovered-the-cause-of-
alzheimers-disease/18658899
His maternal grandparents were physicians and
medical missionaries, and as a young child took
a great interest in medicine.
Through performing hundreds of autopsies, Dr.
Fuller quickly developed an expertise in the human
brain and discovered plaques called amyloids in
brains in 1907 at the Westborough State Hospital
in Massachusetts.
It was this expertise that caught the eye of Dr. Alois
Alzheimer in Germany, and Dr. Fuller was one of
five foreign researchers chosen to work with him at
the psychiatric clinic of the University of Munich.
Dr. Fuller also studied the causes of
schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions
throughout his career and would join the faculty
at Boston University while only rising to an
associate professor position.
In 1974, Boston University opened the Dr. Solomon
Carter Fuller Mental Health Center which provides
a full range of mental health services to adults.
Despite never receiving the titles he deserved,
Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller is recognized as the
first African American Psychiatrist and is
universally recognized for the major
contributions his work has made in the field
of Neuropathology.
Monrovia,
LIBERIA
After migrating to the U.S., Dr. Fuller
pursued psychiatry and attended
Livingstone College, Long Island
Medical School, and eventually
pursued his MD at Boston
University School of Medicine.