The "Science" of Black Bodies

The "Science" of Black Bodies

Throughout history bodies have been treated differently depending on identity, color, nationality and gender. But when we think about the body we think of a singular understanding of how medicine, disease, anatomy, and physical traits were both treated and viewed through history.

Elizabeth Reis in Impossible Hermaphrodites: Intersex in America 1620-1960 tries to disrupt this narrative by introducing an overlooked population in the history of bodies - intersex. In her description of the history of how intersex were treated and viewed Reis discusses the  anxiety that surrounds intersex, the fear that individuals could suddenly change sex and thus disrupt the social and political systems such as women could gain political power if they “became a man” or men could use women’s charities and scam the system if they “became a woman”. Reis further describes that this anxiety about the ability of changing sex could transcend to race as well. “The unnerving possibility that individuals could suddenly change sex paralleled the early national preoccupation with race, racial categories, and the possibility of changing racial identities” (Reis, 2005, p.429).

Reis briefly introduces a topic not typically discussed, how black bodies were deemed inferior though “medicine” in America in order to keep power in the hands of whites.“African Americans were thus defined as inferior and servile in their very essence, rendered so, not by circumstance, but by nature itself” (Reis, 2005, p. 430).

Racism has always been present in medicine. Slaves were diagnosed with diseases such as Drapetomania a disease that caused slaves to run away, Dysaesthesia Aethiopis causing rascality in slaves and Chronic Leprosy which was the reason why slaves had dark skin, big lips, and wooly hair (Covey, 2007, p. 29). These diseases were “discovered” by doctors such as Samuel Cartwright who was pro-slavery (Covey, 2007, p.30) and used these ideas to continue the systematic oppression of blacks by using “science” to show how blacks were inferior to whites and thus should be slaves. Doctors, like Cartwright, needed to find ways to further keep blacks in their place especially in times when the social world was changing, such when people started to question the morality of slavery, and medicine proved a perfect avenue.

Black bodies furthered modern medicine for white groups but in unethical ways. Examples can be seen through doctors such as James Sims who was considered the “father of gynecology” and helped find ways to treat fistulas in women, but at the expense of black bodies (Covey, 2007, p. 30). Slaves were used to experiment on without anesthesia and without consent (Covey, 2007, p.30). Male doctors operated on their bodies without regard for their physical or mental health. Black bodies were seen as not the same as whites and thus justification for the experimentation. In some sense later in history there was almost a “discovery” that blacks were actually humans and that they had “real bodies” that were equivalent to that of whites. Doctors, such as Sims, further tried to shut out black bodies from being understood by having medical illustrations of their experiments and anatomical drawings be only of white women (Covey, 2007, p.30).  It is evident that racial tensions manifest beyond the social sphere and into the medical sphere as well. “Intense white efforts to stiffen measures that controlled and separated African Americans” (Reis, 2005, p. 430) were needed to keep the social order of the day. Doctors used this method in their drawings, by not including black bodies they did not allow a discussion of it in the greater medical field, they simply allowed the same uneducated and not researched thoughts to circulate and become woven into society. Doctors were unable to look past their own racial bias in the treatment of patients and showed that again the medical world is not independent of the social world.

The power relationship can be clearly identified in this picture. Dr.Sims pictured right and his helpers have a women on the experimentation table. This women looks as if she has no say in what is about to happen to her.

The American treatment and fear of non-white bodies can be seen throughout history in native american bodies, immigrant bodies, and black bodies. These different treatments show the inherent belief that white is normal. White is the foundation for understanding “other”. This idea is obviously dangerous. It sets up a hierarchy that automatically puts anything below white and allows for the justification of differential treatment of others. The fear that early Americans exhibited around people being able to change races was understandable. If people could simply change races than blacks and immigrants could gain political and social rights that they had been denied. And once they changed races they could advocate for the oppressed to gain rights. People needed to stay in their place for the world to work. Fears of the body manifest into fears in the social world.

In contemporary discussions of black bodies in medicine the same racial tendencies exist. In the Huffington Post Article “Black Hospital Patients Given Cold Shoulder In Disturbing New Study” discusses how black patients are treated through non-verbal communication. Doctors tend to act more defensive and disengaged in their body stance and movement towards black patients than white patients. The article went on to conclude that communication between doctors and patients tends to be better when they are of the same race. Doctors still see and interact with the black body in a different way than white bodies. Again the social sphere transcends into the medical world. These two words can not remain separate as humans are subconsciously taught how to behave and think by the world around them. Doctors were once children taught to act, fear, and interact with blacks in a specific manner and they carry these myths and attitudes into the medical world. And even once in the medical world the precedent of the treatment of blacks in treatments, research, and studies have continued to have racist tendencies. Bodies have been treated differently throughout history and act as evidence to the social fears and white oppression in society.

Citations:

Reis, E. (September 2005). Impossible Hermaphrodites: Intersex in America, 1620-1960. The Journal of American History, Volume 92.

Covey, H. (2007). African American Slave Medicine. United Kingdom: Lexington Books.

Link:

Freeman, D. (2016, January 1). Black Hospital Patients Given Cold Shoulder In Disturbing New Study. The Huffington Post. Retieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-patients-worse-care_us_568ffdbbe4b0cad15e6498d9

Photo:

OHSU Ephemera Collection, Accession no. 2014-002, Historical Collections & Archives, Oregon Health & Science University.