The Misguided History of Racial Medicine

American medicine has always gotten “race” wrong. The connection between persons of African descent and western medicine began in the context of slavery. Africans were treated more like livestock than human beings. In the 18th century, medical anatomy progressed because of the availability of African-American bodies for dissection. Surgical procedures were perfected using enslaved people often without the benefit of anesthesia.¹

Prior to the 20th century, medicine was more an art than a science. Natural science understood human anatomy and physiology through the lens of special creationism. In the 18th century, non-Europeans were thought to be degenerate compared to Europeans; and in the first half of the 19th century they were thought to be separate creations. For this reason, medicine exaggerated the anatomical and physiological differences that existed between human “races.” Bogus physiological and psychological diseases were invented by leading 19th-century physicians (such as Southern physician Samuel Cartwright’s “dysaesthesia aethiopica”—slaves working in a leisurely way—and “drapetomania”—the insane desire of slaves to run away). By the end of the 19th century, scholars like statistician Frederick Hoffman were convinced that the “Negro” was so infirmed that they would eventually go extinct in America.

There is more genetic variation within the so-called human races than between them.

Things did not improve in the early 20th century. Diseases such as sickle cell anemia were used to support miscegenation statutes to prevent African-American individuals from spreading the disease to whites. The until 1973 (1975 for their wives and children).