NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • The first full history of Black America’s shocking mistreatment as unwilling and unwitting experimental subjects at the hands of the medical establishment. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read this masterful book. "[Washington] has unearthed a shocking amount of information and shaped it into a riveting, carefully documented book." —New York Times From the era of slavery to the present day, starting with the earliest encounters between Black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, Medical Apartheid details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how Blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of Blacks. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions. The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused Black Americans to view researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—with such deep distrust.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871.

New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Biography "Janice P. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor." —Stacy Schiff Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician. Exploring the sisters’ allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women’s rights—or with each other. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now."

Reprint of the original, first published in 1875.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1871. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

In the first half of this century, Henry Ernest Sigerist was widely regarded as the world's leading historian of medicine. A brilliant teacher and lecturer, Sigerist made medical history exciting and relevant for a whole generation of young physicians, medical students, historians, and the general public. A Marxist sympathizer and advocate of socialized medicine, he also had an enormous and controversial influence on the medical politics of his time. In Making Medical History historians Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown bring together individuals from various disciplines, many of whom knew Henry Sigerist, all of whom help to illuminate why, thirty-five years after his death, he continues to be revered by many public health professionals and medical historians. Sigerist came to the Johns Hopkins Institute of the History of Medicine in 1932, arriving from Leipzig to succeed William Henry Welch as director. During Sigerist's tenure at Hopkins, his many accomplishments included founding the leading scholarly journal in the field, the Bulletin of the History of Medicine; transforming the American Association for the History of Medicine into a professional organization; and recruiting and mentoring such luminaries as Owsei Temkin, Ludwig Edelstein, and Erwin Ackerknecht. Organized into three main sections--biographical, historiographical, and political--Making Medical History includes discussions of Sigerist's influence on the history of medicine, medical sociology, and health policy. Today, as the American health care system undergoes tremendous structural changes, Sigerist's work and vision are newly relevant, and his dramatically effective presentation of medical history willcome as a revelation to a new generation of readers. Contributors: Nora Sigerist Beeson, Marcel H. Bickel, Theodore M. Brown, Leslie A. Falk, Elizabeth Fee, John F. Hutchinson, Ingrid Kstner, Walter J. Lear, Michael R. McVaugh, Genevieve Miller, Milton I. Roemer, Owsei Temkin, Ilza Veith, and Heinrich von Staden.

Good Times in the Hospital is a collection of unlikely stories, poignant vignettes, and humorous anecdotes gathered from a lifetime of experience with real doctors and patients. As the setting moves from Duke University Medical School, to The Mayo Clinic, to an inner-city charity hospital, to a military hospital, to private hospitals in metropolitan centers and rural towns, this inside look at hospital life allows the reader to gradually gain a new perspective on medical men and women: They are not much different from the rest of us. After forty years of medical education and hospital practice, the author concludes that, “Doctors are no worse than other people.” As for the patients in these stories—although hospitals are engaged in the most serious business imaginable—you cannot find more laugh-out-loud behavior anywhere. This is because when people are seeking medical care, they are vulnerable and reveal their true, inner selves. And, it turns out that the true, inner selves of most people are often some combination of fascinating, inexplicable, and ridiculous. To paraphrase a quote by Mel Brooks: “So long as this old world keeps spinning around and around, every person riding on it will occasionally get dizzy and do something stupid.” Good Times in the Hospital reminds us that it is unhealthy to take life too seriously and a lighthearted temperament is just as important as a sound diet. This point of view makes it possible for one book to combine a rare glimpse inside the hospital, an informative look at health care, and an entertaining collection of anecdotes. There are chapters about juvenile practical jokes among medical students, mistakes by doctors in training, serious life lessons learned at the bedside, hospital affairs that end badly, doctors threatening other doctors with handguns, a girl who tries to stop her grandma’s pacemaker with an MR scanner, an identical twin who has the surgery intended for her sister, an old man patiently waiting his turn in a charity hospital emergency room while holding his intestines in his hand, boyhood memories of a doctor who accompanied his father making house calls, a doctor who missed his chance to win a Nobel Prize by not listening to his patient, an intriguing case of domestic abuse, fascinating hypochondriacs, insights into why intelligent people spend their last dollar on irrational treatments, amazing examples of cures by mind over matter, the importance of our attitude on our wellness, and even reflections on the question of medical miracles. Is it appropriate to laugh at the behavior of doctors attending their patients and entertain ourselves with yarns of patients in their sickbed? Good Times in the Hospital promotes the viewpoint that the best way to deal with our inevitable foibles is to laugh about them. The author says, “If you believe that some things are sacrosanct and immune from humor, you are reading the wrong book.” In an epilogue following this rich tapestry of medical tales, the author offers some final thoughts on how to sort through medical advice, a discussion of alternative medicine, the real effect of malpractice lawsuits on doctors, and the responsibility of patients for their own health. This epilogue is a rare opportunity to hear from an experienced, retired physician on such matters. Such frank opinions are virtually never discussed by doctors in practice, who must be circumspect in what they say for fear of alienating their patients, losing their insurance coverage, or becoming the target of a law firm. Mostly though, Good Times in the Hospital is an insightful panoply of true-life stories that illustrate the best and worst of human nature, a chance for the reader to have some fun and learn a little along the way.