Page 63 - 1619 Project Curriculum

August 18, 2019

The excruciatingly painful medical consensus, and they remain rooted in to a ‘‘disease of the mind’’ called A 2013 review of studies examining

experiments went on until his body modern-day medical education and drapetomania, which caused them racial disparities in pain manage-

was disfigured by a network of scars. practice. In the 1787 manual ‘‘A Trea- to run away from their enslavers. ment published in The American

John Brown, an enslaved man on a tise on Tropical Diseases; and on The Willfully ignoring the inhumane Medical Association Journal of Ethics

Baldwin County, Ga., plantation in Climate of the West-Indies,’’ a British conditions that drove desper- found that black and Hispanic people

the 1820s and ’30s, was lent to a phy- doctor, Benjamin Moseley, claimed ate men and women to attempt — from children with appendicitis

sician, Dr. Thomas Hamilton, who that black people could bear surgi- escape, he insisted, without irony, to elders in hospice care — received

was obsessed with proving that phys- cal operations much more than white that enslaved people contracted this inadequate pain management com-

iological diff erences between black people, noting that ‘‘what would be ailment when their enslavers treated pared with white counterparts.

and white people existed. Hamilton the cause of insupportable pain to a them as equals, and he prescribed A 2016 survey of 222 white medi-

used Brown to try to determine how white man, a Negro would almost ‘‘whipping the devil out of them’’ as cal students and residents published

deep black skin went, believing it disregard.’’ To drive home his point, a preventive measure. in The Proceedings of the National
was thicker than white skin. Brown, he added, ‘‘I have amputated the legs Academy of Sciences showed that

who eventually escaped to England, of many Negroes who have held the Today Cartwright’s 1851 paper reads half of them endorsed at least one

recorded his experiences in an upper part of the limb themselves.’’ like satire, Hamilton’s supposedly myth about physiological diff erences

autobiography, published in 1855 as These misconceptions about pain scientific experiments appear sim- between black people and white

‘‘Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative tolerance, seized upon by pro-slavery ply sadistic and, last year, a statue people, including that black people’s

of the Life, Suff erings, and Escape of advocates, also allowed the physician commemorating Sims in New York’s nerve endings are less sensitive than

John Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Now J. Marion Sims — long celebrated as Central Park was removed after pro- white people’s. When asked to imag-

in England.’’ In Brown’s words, Ham- the father of modern gynecology — longed protest that included women ine how much pain white or black

ilton applied ‘‘blisters to my hands, to use black women as subjects in wearing blood-splattered gowns in patients experienced in hypothetical

legs and feet, which bear the scars to experiments that would be uncon- memory of Anarcha, Betsey, Lucy situations, the medical students and

this day. He continued until he drew scionable today, practicing painful and the other enslaved women he residents insisted that black people

up the dark skin from between the operations (at a time before anesthe- brutalized. And yet, more than 150 felt less pain. This made the provid-

upper and the under one. He used sia was in use) on enslaved women years after the end of slavery, falla- ers less likely to recommend appro-

to blister me at intervals of about in Montgomery, Ala., between 1845 cies of black immunity to pain and priate treatment. A majority of these

two weeks.’’ This went on for nine and 1849. In his autobiography, ‘‘The weakened lung function continue doctors to be also still believed the

months, Brown wrote, until ‘‘the Doc- Story of My Life,’’ Sims described the to show up in modern-day medical lie that Thomas Hamilton tortured

tor’s experiments had so reduced me agony the women suffered as he cut education and philosophy. John Brown to prove nearly two cen-

that I was useless in the field.’’ their genitals again and again in an Even Cartwright’s footprint turies ago: that black skin is thicker

Hamilton was a courtly South- attempt to perfect a surgical tech- remains embedded in current med- than white skin.
ern gentleman, a respected phy- nique to repair vesico-vaginal fistula, ical practice. To validate his the- This disconnect allows scientists,

sician and a trustee of the Medi- which can be an extreme complica- ory about lung inferiority in Afri- doctors and other medical provid-

cal Academy of Georgia. And like tion of childbirth. can-Americans, he became one of ers — and those training to fill their

many other doctors of the era in the Thomas Jefferson, in ‘‘Notes on the first doctors in the United States positions in the future — to ignore

South, he was also a wealthy planta- the State of Virginia,’’ published to measure pulmonary function their own complicity in health care

tion owner who tried to use science around the same time as Moseley’s with an instrument called a spiro- inequality and gloss over the inter-

to prove that diff erences between treatise, listed what he proposed meter. Using a device he designed nalized racism and both conscious

black people and white people went were ‘‘the real distinctions which himself, Cartwright calculated that and unconscious bias that drive

beyond culture and were more than nature has made,’’ including a lack ‘‘the deficiency in the Negro may them to go against their very oath

skin deep, insisting that black bod- of lung capacity. In the years that be safely estimated at 20 percent.’’ to do no harm.
ies were composed and functioned followed, physicians and scientists Today most commercially available The centuries-old belief in racial

diff erently than white bodies. They embraced Jeff erson’s unproven the- spirometers, used around the world diff erences in physiology has con-
believed that black people had large ories, none more aggressively than to diagnose and monitor respiratory tinued to mask the brutal eff ects

sex organs and small skulls — which Samuel Cartwright, a physician and illness, have a ‘‘race correction’’ built of discrimination and structural

translated to promiscuity and a lack professor of ‘‘diseases of the Negro’’ into the software, which controls inequities, instead placing blame

of intelligence — and higher toler- at the University of Louisiana, now for the assumption that blacks have on individuals and their commu-

ance for heat, as well as immunity to Tulane University. His widely cir- less lung capacity than whites. In her nities for statistically poor health

to

some illnesses and susceptibility culated paper, ‘‘Report on the Dis- 2014 book, ‘‘Breathing Race Into the outcomes. Rather than conceptual-

others. These fallacies, presented as eases and Physical Peculiarities of Machine: The Surprising Career of izing race as a risk factor that pre-
fact and legitimized in medical jour- the Negro Race,’’ published in the the Spirometer from Plantation to dicts disease or disability because

nals, bolstered society’s view that May 1851 issue of The New Orleans Genetics,’’ Lundy Braun, a Brown of a fixed susceptibility conceived

enslaved people were fit for little Medical and Surgical Journal, cata- University professor of medical on shaky grounds centuries ago,

outside forced labor and provided loged supposed physical diff erences science and Africana studies, notes we would do better to understand

support for racist ideology and dis- between whites and blacks, includ- that ‘‘race correction’’ is still taught race as a proxy for bias, disadvan-

criminatory public policies. ing the claim that black people had to medical students and described tage and ill treatment. The poor

Over the centuries, the two most lower lung capacity. Cartwright, in textbooks as scientific fact and health outcomes of black people,

persistent physiological myths — that conveniently, saw forced labor as standard practice. the targets of discrimination over

black people were impervious to a way to ‘‘vitalize’’ the blood and Recent data also shows that hundreds of years and numerous

pain and had weak lungs that could correct the problem. Most out- present-day doctors fail to sufficient- generations, may be a harbinger for

be strengthened through hard work rageous, Cartwright maintained ly treat the pain of black adults and the future health of an increasingly

— wormed their way into scientific that enslaved people were prone children for many medical issues. diverse and unequal America.•

Illustration by Diana Ejaita 57