Jacob Bolotin
Jacob Bolotin. Born in 1888 to a poor immigrant family in Chicago, Jacob Bolotin fought prejudice and misconceptions about the capabilities of blind people in order to win acceptance to medical school and then into the medical profession. He fought his way into and through the Chicago College of Medicine, graduated with honors at twenty-four, and became the world's first totally blind physician fully licensed to practice medicine. He was particularly recognized for his expertise on diseases of the heart and lungs. Bolotin used his many public speaking engagements to advocate for the employment of the blind and their full integration into society. When Jacob Bolotin died at the young age of thirty-six, five thousand people attended his funeral.
