Anti-Black Racism in Medicine

~Aja Lans, PhD, MHL Educational Resources Fellow, 2021

Medicine During Slavery | Creating Racial Differences | The Eugenics Movement | Experimentation on Black Bodies

The goal of this resource set is to introduce viewers to the roots of anti-Black racism in medicine that have perpetuated health disparities whereby Black individuals disproportionally suffer from a variety of medical concerns and a lack of adequate healthcare resources. Many diseases, including but not limited to tuberculosis, syphilis, and sickle cell anemia, have a long history of being associated with specific racial types. Poor health among Black people has repeatedly been presented as simply a fact of life, caused by assumed intellectual and biological inferiority. However, we must address the roots of such assumptions, assumptions that were created, disseminated, and reinforced by racist scientific research and medical practice.

“Race” is a fraught word that has been interpreted and weaponized in many different contexts. Races as discrete biological categories do not exist, but as social constructs have major ramifications. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that “race becomes biology” through a vicious cycle in which racial discrimination harms community and individual health, and these negative health outcomes are then used to reinforce the notion that race is indeed biological. 

These resource sets are based on four broad themes that are meant to build upon and complement one another, so there is overlap between topics. While readers can begin anywhere in the sets, the first three are loosely arranged chronologically: (1) Medicine During Slavery, (2) Creating Racial Differences, and (3) The Eugenics Movement. The fourth set, Experimentation on Black Bodies, covers all time periods and intersects with the previous sets.

This topic of course turns up no shortage of offensive and unsettling material. The term “negro” is very commonly used as are other outdated notions of race. There are also materials with offensive and outdated discussions of sexuality, gender, disability, and socioeconomic status. It is necessary to search the texts using various keywords and phrases to locate the relevant content. Terms to search for include but are not limited to the categorizations “negro,” “black,” “slave,” and “servant.” Searching for specific medical conditions, tools, or procedures also proves effective. 

Medicine During Slavery

The first set begins with sources that are intended to orient the viewer to the treatment of enslaved Africans and their descendants, largely focusing on but not limited to slavery in the present-day United States. By starting with this set, the viewer should be able to trace certain assumptions about race and health and see how they are both maintained and transformed over time to fit different circumstances.

Take for instance the work of Dr. Samuel Cartwright, who created an illness called drapetomania, or the disease causing slaves to run away. Cartwright considered this a curable disease of the mind which could be prevented by encouraging order and good discipline. While some diseases were considered to be unique to the condition of enslavement, after emancipation other illnesses would be attributed to freedom.

This is a diagram depicting Dr. John Hutchinson’s spirometer, a tool designed to measure lung capacity. Dr. Samuel Cartwright is believed to be the first individual to use the spirometer to measure differences in lung capacity between Black and white people. This led to the notion that Black people naturally have lower lung capacity than white people, and modern spirometers still automatically “correct” for racial differences. See Lundy Braun’s Breathing Race into the Machine (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

Creating Racial Differences

As we turn to the next set focusing on post-emancipation science, medicine, anthropology, and “The Negro Health Problem,” readers will see many arguments that slavery was indeed better for the mental and physical health of Black people. There is also an increased focus on quantifying differences between races in order to better categorize people and build a hierarchy of humans. Racialized science was used to contribute to ideologies about human difference and rationalize the inferior treatment of Black people based on their supposed lack of intelligence, morals, and animal-like physical features. These sorts of studies flourished throughout the 19th and early 20^th centuries, with an emphasis placed on studies of skin color, hair length and texture, and anthropometry, especially of the head. Scientists claimed neutrality while their research fueled discriminatory public policy against Black, indigenous, and immigrant communities.

After the American Civil War, the process of emancipation overwhelmed almshouses and state hospitals. Some 500,000 Black people self-emancipated during the war, and 3.5 million were freed when the war ended. Former slaves existed in a liminal state, without a clear political status. They were also defenseless against infectious diseases. The increase in mortality among newly freed Blacks was used to argue for their biological inferiority and that they were better suited for enslavement. Despite advances in germ theory and disease causation, physicians continued to discriminate against Black patients. Social and moral status was still assumed to play a role in black patients’ illness.

The Eugenics Movement

Such ideas about racialized types directly contributed to the field of eugenics, or the study of race improvement by better breeding. British scientist Francis Galton (1822-1911) coined the term eugenics after reading his cousin Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859). Eugenicists believed that people were born with certain qualities including character and intellect, and that traits including alcoholism, feeblemindedness, prostitution, criminality, and immorality were genetically controlled pathological conditions. Many eugenicists, including Galton, argued that selective breeding would resolve human suffering. During the Progressive Era, many Americans would come to consider the movement to be a scientific breakthrough. Therefore, certain individuals should be selected to reproduce and improve the (white) race. The eugenics movement became popular in the United States as a way to bolster legislation that oppressed people of color, immigrants, and the disabled.

The eugenics movement in the United States was spearheaded by Charles Davenport (1866-1944). In 1904 Davenport became the director of the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, where he would eventually establish the Eugenics Record Office. Here, Davenport and colleagues trained students to be field workers who were then sent to various institutions, including prisons and asylums, to collect anthropometric measurements of inmmates. 

Eugenics researchers also gathered biased information from poverty-stricken urban areas to argue that African Americans were of inferior intellect and had weaker immune systems than whites. Eugenics based arguments were also used to forcibly sterilize women who were institutionalized in various prisons, asylums, and hospitals against their will, and the procedures were deemed legal. Such practices continued until the 1940s and were only discredited after the Holocaust, although many eugenic philosophies remain. 

Experimentation on Black Bodies

The theme of human experimentation runs throughout this entire set and so covers many time periods. The objectification of Black people began with chattel slavery. The traditional role of the enslaved as objects for study carried on after emancipation, making black bodies into objects suitable for medical demonstrations, dissections, and risky surgeries and experiments. To put it simply, “The atmosphere created by racial inferiority theories and stereotypes, 246 years of black chattel slavery, along with biased educational processes, almost inevitably led to medical and scientific abuse, unethical experimentation, and overutilization of African-Americans as subjects for teaching and training purposes.”

Here, let us consider the legacy of J. Marion Sims, the “Father of Modern Gynecology.” Sims pioneered tools and surgical treatments for women’s reproductive health by conducting research and experiments on enslaved Black women without the use of anesthesia. His early surgeries carried out on enslaved women such as Lucy were not successful and caused months of agony and illness. He supposedly perfected fistula surgeries after 30 operations on 17-year-old Anarcha. It wasn’t until this success that he began the operation on white women with the use of anesthesia.

Works Cited

Baker, Lee D. From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Byrd, Michael W. and Linda A. Clayton. “Race, Medicine, and Health Care in the United States: A Historical Survey.” Journal of the National Medical Association 93, no. 3 (March 2001): 11S-34S.

Downs, Jim. Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Cooper Owens, Deirdre. Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2017.

Gould, Stephen Jay. The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996, 1981.

Gravlee, Clarence C. “How Race Becomes Biology: Embodiment of Social Inequality.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139, no. 1 (2009): 47-57.

Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Anchor Books, 2006.

Further Resources

https://www.aaihs.org/syllabus-a-history-of-anti-black-racism-in-medicine/

https://www.pbs.org/video/regional-voices-what-race-and-what-it-not-dr-agustin-fuentes/

Author	Publication Title	Publisher	Publication Year
Master of Los Balbases, flourished around 1495; Sedano, Alonso de	A Verger's Dream: Saints Cosmas and Damian Performing a Miraculous Cure by Transplantation of a Leg		1495
Aubrey, T.	The sea-surgeon, or The Guinea man's vade mecum. : In which is laid down, the method of curing such diseases as usually happen abroad, especially on the coast of Guinea; with the best way of treating Negroes, both in health and in sickness.	London : Printed for John Clarke at the Bible under the Royal-Exchange	1729
Hales, Stephen	An account of a useful discovery to distill double the usual quantity of sea-water, by blowing showers of air up through the distilling liquor: and also to have the distilled water perfectly fresh and good by means of a little chalk. And an account of the great benefit of ventilators in many instances, in preserving the health and lives of people, in slave and other transport ships; which were read before the Royal Society. Also an account of the good effect of blowing showers of air up through milk ...	London : Richard Manby	1756
Ramsay, James; Beach, Samuel	An essay on the treatment and conversion of African slaves in the British sugar colonies	Dublin : Printed for T. Walker ...[et al.]	1784
Dancer, Thomas; Aikman, Alexander	The medical assistant, or Jamaica practice of physic : designed chiefly for the use of families and plantations	Kingston, Jamaica : Printed by Alexander Aikman ...	1801
Grainger, James; Wright, William;	An essay on the more common West-India diseases and the remedies which that country itself produces [electronic resource] : to which are added some hints on the management, &c. of Negroes	Edinburgh : printed for Mundell & Son ; London : and Longman & Rees	1802
Collins, Dr;	Practical rules for the management and medical treatment of Negro slaves, in the sugar colonies [electronic resource]	London : printed by J. Barfield, Wardour Street, printer to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, for Vernor and Hood, in the Poultry	1803
Shaw, Simeon	Nature displayed in the heavens, and on the earth, according to the latest observations and discoveries	London : Printed for Sir Richard Phillips; pub. by G. and W.B. Whitaker	1823
Wellcome Library	A brief view of the nature and effects of Negro slavery, as it exists in the colonies of Great Britain	London : Printed by Ellerton and Henderson	1823
Miles, Charles	A new and improved system of medical botanical practice : also, a concise view of anatomy and surgery, containing a medical classification of the best vegetable productions, with the better mode of compounding and administering in the treatment of disease : to which is added a short treatise on obstetricks, and a medical glossary	Cleaveland : Printed for the author	1829
Carmichael, Mrs (A C. ) n 88130519	Domestic manners and social condition of the white, coloured, and negro population of the West Indies	London : Whittaker, Treacher, and Co.	1833
Cartwright, Samuel A. (Samuel Adolphus)	Some account of the asiatic cholera, cholera asphyxia or pulseless plague. With a sketch of its pathology and treatment and advice, relative to its prevention on plantations, premonitory symptoms and treatment	Natchez, Miss. : Printed at "The Natchez Office'	1833
Alcott, William A. (William Andrus)	Breathing bad air	Boston ; New York : George W. Light	1839
Drake, Daniel; Yandell, Lunsford P. (Lunsford Pitts)	Western journal of medicine and surgery	[Louisville, Ky. : Prentice & Weissinger]	1840
Graves, Robert James; Gerhard, W. W.	Clinical lectures;	Philadelphia, Barrington	1842
Binns, Edward	Prodromus towards a philosophical inquiry into the intellectual powers of the negro	London : John Churchill	1844
Hall, W. W. (William Whitty)	Consumption, a curable disease : illustrated in the treatment of one hundred and fifty cases	Pittsburgh : Printed at the Commercial Journal Office	1845
Burnett, C. M. (Charles Mountford)	Insanity tested by science, and shown to be a disease rarely connected with permanent organic lesion of the brain : and on that account far more susceptible of cure than has hitherto been supposed	London : Samuel Highley ...	1848
Pym, William; Bryson, Alexander; Burnett, William	Observations upon Bulam, vomito-negro, or yellow fever, with a review of "A report upon the diseases of the African Coast by Sir William Burnett and Dr. Bryson', proving its highly contagious powers	London : J. Churchill	1848
Cartwright, Samuel Adolphus; The Library of Congress	The pathology and treatment of cholera: with an appendix	New Orleans, Printed at Spencer & Middletons's "Magic press" office	1849
Browne, Peter A. (Peter Arrell); Prichard, James Cowles; American Ethnological Society	The classification of mankind, by the hair and wool of their heads : with an answer to Dr. Prichard's assertion, that "the covering of the head of the Negro is hair, properly so termed, and not wool" : read before the American Ethnological Society, November 3, 1849	Philadelphia : A. Hart	1850
Kaufmann, Theodor; Bloede, Hoff &	Effects of the Fugitive-Slave-Law		1850
Louisiana State Medical Society	New Orleans medical and surgical journal	New-Orleans : S. Woodall	1851
Louisiana State Medical Society	New Orleans medical and surgical journal	New-Orleans : S. Woodall	1851
Ramsay, H. A.; Bryan, James	Dr. H.A. Ramsay's letter to Dr. James Bryan, on the Southern negro, etc	Philadelphia : A. Hughes & Co., printers	1853
Burmeister, Hermann	The black man : the comparative anatomy and psychology of the African Negro	New York : William C. Bryant & Co., printers	1853
Cartwright, Samuel A. (Samuel Adolphus)	Ethnology of the negro or prognathous race : a lecture delivered Nov. 30, 1857, before the N. O. Academy of Sciences	[New Orleans? : s.n.]	1857
Copland, James	A dictionary of practical medicine: comprising general pathology, the nature and treatment of diseases, morbid structures, and the disorders especially incidental to climates, to the sex, and to the different epochs of life : with numerous prescriptions for the medicines recommended, a classification of diseases according to pathological principles, a copious bibliography with references, and an appendix of approved formulae : the whole forming a library of pathology and practical medicine and a digest of medical literature (Volume 3)	New York : Harper & Bros.	1859
Elliott, E. N.; Christy, David; Bledsoe, Albert Taylor; Stringfellow, Thornton; Harper, William; Hammond, James Henry; Cartwright, Samuel Adolphus; Hodge, Charles	Cotton is king, and pro-slavery arguments: comprising the writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cartwright, on this important subject	Augusta, Ga., Pritchard, Abbott & Loomis	1860
Bucknill, John Charles; Tuke, Daniel Hack	A manual of psychological medicine [electronic resource] : containing the history, nosology, description, statistics, diagnosis, pathology, and treatment of insanity, with an appendix of cases	London : John Churchill	1862
Bucknill, John Charles; Tuke, Daniel Hack	A manual of psychological medicine [electronic resource] : containing the history, nosology, description, statistics, diagnosis, pathology, and treatment of insanity, with an appendix of cases	London : John Churchill	1862
Gibb, Sir George Duncan	Essential points of difference between the larynx of the negro and that of the white man	London : T. Richards	1865
Walker, Alexander	Intermarriage; or, The mode in which and the causes why, beauty, health and intellect, result from certain unions, and deformity, disease and insanity from others : demonstrated by delineation of the structure and forms, and descriptions of the functions and capacities, which each parent, in every pair, bestows on children-in conformity with certain natural laws, and by an account of corresponding effects in the breeding of animals, with eight illustrative drawings	Philadelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston	1866
Walker, Alexander	Intermarriage; or, The mode in which and the causes why, beauty, health and intellect, result from certain unions, and deformity, disease and insanity from others : demonstrated by delineation of the structure and forms, and descriptions of the functions and capacities, which each parent, in every pair, bestows on children-in conformity with certain natural laws, and by an account of corresponding effects in the breeding of animals, with eight illustrative drawings	Philadelphia : Lindsay & Blakiston	1866
Flint, Austin	Contributions relating to the causation and prevention of disease, and to camp diseases; together with a report of the diseases, etc., among the prisoners at Andersonville, Ga	New York, U.S. Sanitary Comm.	1867
Bleby, Henry	Death struggles of slavery : being a narrative of facts and incidents, which occured in a British colony, during the two years immediately preceding Negro emancipation	London : Printed by W. Nichols	1868
Royal College of Surgeons of England	Notes and queries on anthropology : for the use of travellers and residents in uncivilized lands	London : Edward Stanford	1874
Johnson, Joseph Taber; Billings, John S. (John Shaw)	On some of the apparent peculiarities of parturition in the Negro race, with remarks on race pelves in general	New York : William Wood & Co.	1875
Atkinson, I. Edmondson (Isaac Edmondson); Baltimore Clinical Society	Early syphilis in the Negro		1877
Library of the Surgeon-General's Office (U.S.)	Index-catalogue of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, United States Army. Authors and subjects (Series 1, Volume 9)	Washington : G.P.O.	1880
	Annals of surgery	Philadelphia Lippincott	1885
	Forordained, a story of heredity and of special parental influences	New York, Fowler & Wells co.	1886
Tipton, F.	The Negro problem from a medical standpoint	[New York?] : [publisher not identified]	1886
Mann, Matthew D. (Matthew Darbyshire)	A system of gynecology	Philadelphia, Lea brothers & co.	1887
Mann, Matthew D. (Matthew Darbyshire)	A system of gynecology	Philadelphia, Lea brothers & co.	1887
Tait, Lawson; Smith, James Greig	Lectures on ectopic pregnancy and pelvic haematocele	Birmingham : The "Journal" Printing Works	1888
Everts, Orpheus	Asexualization as a penalty for crime and reformation of criminals : a paper read before the Cincinnati Academy of Medicine, February 27, 1888	Cin. : W.B. Carpenter & Co.	1888
Royal College of Physicians of London	A system of gynecology and obstetrics	London	1889
Galton, Francis; Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics	Natural inheritance	London : Macmillan & Co.	1889
Gunby, A. A. (Andrew Augustus); The Library of Congress	Two addresses on Negro education in the South	New Orleans, H. C. Thomason	1890
Creighton, Charles	A history of epidemics in Britain ..	Cambridge, The University Press	1891
Medical Society of the State of North Carolina. Annual Session	Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina [serial]	[Raleigh, N.C. : Medical Society of the State of North Carolina]	1891
Mackenzie, Stephen	On a case of negro lethargy or the sleeping sickness of Africa	[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]	1891
Pyle, John S.	A plea for the appropriation of criminals, condemned to capital punishment, to the experimental physiologist	[Keokuk?] : [publisher not identified]	1893
Pyle, John S.	A plea for the appropriation of criminals, condemned to capital punishment, to the experimental physiologist	[Keokuk?] : [publisher not identified]	1893
Anderson, McCall	A treatise on diseases of the skin [electronic resource] : with special reference to their diagnosis and treatment including an analysis of 12,000 consecutive cases	London : Charles Griffin	1894
Magruder, G. L. (George Lloyd)	An extreme case of leucoderma in a Negro, with a comparison of similar conditions in various animals	New York : Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Co.	1894
Matas, Rudolph	The Surgical peculiarities of the American Negro : a statistical inquiry based upon the records of the Charity Hospital of New Orleans, La., decennium 1884-'94	[Philadelphia] : [publisher not identified]	1896
Abel, John Jacob; Davis, Walter S.	On the pigment of the Negro's skin and hair	[New York?] : D. Appleton and Company	1896
Byford, Henry Turman	Manual of gynecology	Philadelphia, P. Blakiston, Son & Co.	1897
Hueppe, F. (Ferdinand)	Zur Rassen- und Sozialhygiene der Griechen im Alterthum und in der Gegenwart	Wiesbaden : C.W. Kreidel's Verlag	1897
Wellcome Library	Selected essays and monographs [electronic resource] : translations and reprints from various sources	London : New Sydenham Society	1897
Hrdli?ka, Aleš; American Association for the Advancement of Science	Physical differences between white and colored children		1898
Hrdli?ka, Aleš	Dimensions of the normal pituitary fossa or sella turcica in the White and the Negro races : an anatomical study of fifty-seven normal skulls of white and sixteen normal skulls of colored individuals	Utica, N.Y. : State Hospitals Press	1899
Darwin, Leonard	Modern eugenics and human behavior	Toronto : Metropolitan Pub. Co.	1900
Deniker, Joseph=	The races of man : an outline of anthropology and ethnography	London, W. Scott, ltd.; New York, C. Scribner's Sons	1900
Jordan, David Starr	The blood of the nation; a study of the decay of races through survival of the unfit	Boston, American Unitarian Association	1902
Chapple, W. A.	The fertility of the unfit	Melbourne : Whitcombe & Tombs	1903
Royal Society of London. Sleeping Sickness Commission	Reports of the Sleeping Sickness Commission. Nos 1-17 [electronic resource]	London	1903
Castellani, Aldo	Sleeping sickness	[London] : British Medical Association	1904
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt); Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems (11th : 1906 : Atlanta University)	The health and physique of the Negro American : report of a social study made under the direction of Atlanta University : together with the Proceedings of the Eleventh Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems, held at Atlanta university, on May the 29th, 1906	Atlanta, Ga. : Atlanta University Press	1906
Widney, J. P. (Joseph Pomeroy)	Race life of the Aryan peoples	New York and London : Funk & Wagnalls company	1907
White, J. D.; McQuillen, J. H. (John Hugh); Ziegler, George Jacob; White, James William; Kirk, Edward C. (Edward Cameron); Anthony, L. Pierce (Lovick Pierce)	The Dental cosmos	Philadelphia, S. S. White Dental Manufacturing Co	1908
Galton, Francis	Memories of my life	London : Methuen & co	1908
	The Southern California practitioner	Los Angeles, Calif. : Stoll & Thayer	1908
Bertram, James Glass,	Flagellation & the flagellants [electronic resource] : a history of the rod in all countries from the earliest period to the present time	London : William Reeves	1910
Royal College of Physicians of London	On inheritance of mental characters : the Harveian oration for 1910 delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18	London : Adlard and Son	1910
Ploetz, Alfred J.	Ziele und Aufgaben der Rassenhygiene	Braunschweig : Friedrich Vieweg	1910
Pearson, Karl	Nature and nurture, the problem of the future : a presidential address delivered by Karl Pearson at the annual meeting of the Social and Political Education League, April 28, 1910	London : Dulau	1910
Laski, Harold Joseph	The scope of eugenics	[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]	1910
American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis	Social diseases.	New York : American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis	1910
Crane, R. Newton (Robert Newton)	Marriage laws and statutory experiments in eugenics in the United States	[London?] : [Eugenics Education Society?]	1910
Ellis, Havelock	The problem of race-regeneration	New York, Moffat, Yard & company	1911
Lombroso, Gina; Lombroso, Cesare	Criminal man, according to the classification of Cesare Lombroso	New York, Putnam	1911
Woodbury, William A.	Beauty culture : a practical handbook on the care of the person, designed for both professional and private use	London : Fisher Unwin	1911
Fox, Howard	The anular [i.e. annular] lesions of early syphilis in the negro	Wien : Wilhelm Braumüller	1912
Fox, Howard	The anular [i.e. annular] lesions of early syphilis in the negro	Wien : Wilhelm Braumüller	1912
Baker, La Reine Helen (La Reine Helen McKenzie)	Race improvement, or, Eugenics : a little book on a great subject	New York : Dodd, Mead and Company	1912
Schuster, Edgar	Eugenics	London ; Glasgow : Collins' Clear Type Press	1912
Mott, F. W. (Frederick Walker)	Heredity and eugenics in relation to insanity	[London? : Eugenics Education Society?]	1912
Davenport, Charles Benedict	Heredity in relation to eugenics	London : Williams & Norgate	1912
American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis	Social diseases.	New York : American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis	1912
Davenport, Charles Benedict	Eugenics and the physician	[New York?] : [A.R. Elliott]	1912
Bateson, William	Biological fact and the structure of society : The Herbert Spencer lecture delivered at the examination schools on Wednesday, February 28, 1912	Oxford : Clarendon Press	1912
Ellis, Havelock,	The task of social hygiene [electronic resource]	London : Constable & Co.	1912
Robinson, William J. (William Josephus)	Practical eugenics : four means of improving the human race a lecture	New York : The Critic and Guide Company	1912
International Eugenics Congress (1st : 1912 : University of London)	First International Eugenics Congress, London, July 24th to July 30th, 1912, University of London, South Kensington : programme and time table	Beverley : Wright & Hoggard, printers	1912
Castle, William E. (William Ernest); Coulter, John Merle; Davenport, Charles Benedict; East, Edward M. (Edward Murray); Tower, William Lawrence	Heredity and eugenics; a course of lectures summarizing recent advances in knowledge in variation, heredity, and evolution and its relation to plant, animal and human improvement and welfare	Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago Press	1912
Sandwith, F. M.	Sleeping sickness	London : Macmillan and Co.	1912
North Carolina. State Board of Health at Chapel Hill	Bulletin of the North Carolina Board of Health [serial]	Wilmington, N.C. : Secretary of the Board	1912
Lubbock, John	The origin of civilisation and the primitive condition of man : mental and social condition of savages	London ; New York : Longmans, Green, and co.	1912
Harris, John H. (John Hobbis)	Dawn in darkest Africa	London : Smith, Elder	1912
Davenport, Charles Benedict; Danielson, Florence Harris	Heredity of skin color in negro-white crosses. With appendix, being abridgement of field-notes, chiefly of Florence H. Danielson	Washington Carnegie Institution of Washington	1913
Reed, Charles Alfred Lee	Marriage and genetics; laws of human breeding and applied eugenics	Cincinnati, Galton Press	1913
Aldrich, Morton Arnold; Carruth, William Herbert; Davenport, Charles Benedict; Ellwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram); Holmes, Arthur; Jordan, Harvey Ernest; Keller, Albert Galloway; Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee); Vaughan, Victor C. (Victor Clarence); Webber, Herbert John; Wolcott, Robert H. (Robert Henry); Howell, William H. (William Henry)	Eugenics: twelve university lectures	New York, Dodd, Mead and company	1914
Hague, W. Grant (William Grant)	The eugenic marriage : a personal guide to the new science of better living and better babies	New York : Review of Reviews Co.	1914
Pearson, Karl	The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton	Cambridge [England] : University Press	1914
Eames, Blanche	Principles of eugenics : a practical treatise	New York : Moffat, Yard and Company	1914
University of California Libraries	Lectures and addresses on the Negro in the South	Charlottesville, Va., The Michie Company, printers, pref	1915
Maryland Association for the Prevention and Relief of Tuberculosis	The Negro tuberculosis problem in Maryland : whose problem?		1915
Robinson, William J. (William Josephus)	Eugenics, marriage and birth control : (practical eugenics)	New York, The Critic and guide company	1917
	American Medicine	[New York, etc.]	1917
March, Norah H.	Towards racial health, a handbook on the training of boys and girls, parents teachers and social workers	New York, Dutton	1919
Hall, Winfield Scott	Girlhood and its problems : the sex life of woman	Philadelphia : The John C. Winston Company	1919
Morgan, C. Lloyd (Conwy Lloyd)	Eugenics and environment	London : John Bale, Sons & Danielsson	1919
Seligmann, Herbert J. (Herbert Jacob); The Library of Congress	The negro faces America	New York, London, Harper & Brothers	1920
Saleeby, C. W. (Caleb Williams); University of Connecticut Libraries	The eugenic prospect : national and racial	New York : Dodd, Mead	1921
Holmes, Samuel J. (Samuel Jackson)	The trend of the race; a study of present tendencies in the biological development of civilized mankind	New York Harcourt, Brace and company	1921
	Southern medicine and surgery [serial]	Charlotte, N.C. : Charlotte Medical Press	1921
Owens-Adair, Bethenia	Human sterilization : it's [sic] social and legislative aspects	Portland [Or.] : Metropolitan Press	1922
Laughlin, Harry Hamilton	Eugenical sterilization in the United States	[Chicago] Psychopathic Laboratory of the Municipal Court of Chicago	1922
Great Britain. National Birth-rate Commission	Youth and the race : the development and education of young citizens for worthy parenthood	London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner ; New York : E.P. Dutton	1923
Laughlin, Harry Hamilton	The second International Exhibition of Eugenics held September 22 to October 22, 1921 : in connection with the Second International Congress of Eugenics in the American Museum of Natural History, New York : an account of the organization of the exhibition, the classification of the exhibits, the list of exhibitors, and a catalog and description of the exhibits	Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins Company	1923
Medical Society of Virginia	Virginia Medical Monthly	Richmond, Medical Society of Virginia	1923
Alexander, Sadie Tanner Mossell; Landis, Henry Robert Munsy; Henry Phipps Institute	A study of the Negro tuberculosis problem in Philadelphia	Philadelphia : Henry Phipps Institute	1923
Halsted, William	Surgical papers	Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins Press	1924
South Carolina Medical Association	Journal of the South Carolina Medical Association	[Columbia : The Association]	1926
Robinson, William J. (William Josephus)	Fewer and better babies : birth control, or, The limitation of offspring by prevenception	New York : Eugenics Pub. Co.	1926
	American Journal of Diseases of Children 1926-02: Vol 31 Iss 2	American Medical Association	1926
Howe, Lucian	The Control by Law of Hereditary Blindness: Presidential Address of the Eugenics Research Association	Eugenics Research Association; Americna Eugenics Society	1928
Department of Health, Education	Photograph of Participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study		1929
Department of Health, Education	Photograph of Participants in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study		1929
Reuter, Edward Byron	Race mixture : studies in intermarriage and miscegenation	New York ; London : McGraw-Hill	1931
Darwin, Leonard; MBLWHOI Library	What is eugenics?	New York, pub. by the Third international congress of eugenics	1932
J. L. Moreno; American Printing House for the Blind, Inc	Who Shall Survive: A New Approach to the Problem of Human Interrelations	Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Co.	1934
State Medical Society of Wisconsin	Wisconsin Medical Journal	Madison [etc.] : State Medical Society of Wisconsin	1952
Medical Society of the District of Columbia	Medical annals of the District of Columbia	[Washington, etc., Medical Society of the District of Columbia]	1954
California Medical Association	California medicine	San Francisco: California Medical Association	1955
Olansky, Sidney	Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro: Twenty-Two Years of Serologic Observation in a Selected Syphilis Study Group		1956
Texas Medical Association	Texas State Journal of Medicine	[Austin] : Texas Medical Association.	1961
Massachusetts. Commission on Lunacy (1854)	Insanity and idiocy in Massachusetts : report of the Commission on Lunacy, 1855	Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press	1971
Furman, Bess	A profile of the United States Public Health Service, 1798-1948	[Bethesda, Md.] : U.S. dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine ; For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., Washington	1973
Furman, Bess	A profile of the United States Public Health Service, 1798-1948	[Bethesda, Md.] : U.S. dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine ; For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., Washington	1973
Medical Society of Virginia	Virginia medical monthly (1918- )	Richmond, Medical Society of Virginia	1974
Medical Society of the State of New York (1807- )	New York State Journal of Medicine	Lake Success, N.Y.:Medical Society of the State of New York	1974
United States. National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research	Research involving prisoners : report and recommendations	[Washington] : U.S. Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare	1976
United States. National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research	The Belmont report : ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research	[Bethesda, Md.] : The Commission	1978
Medical Association of the State of Alabama	Journal of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama	Montgomery, Ala. : Board of Censors, [ -1983?]	1979
Stetten, DeWitt; Carrigan, W. T.	NIH : an account of research in its laboratories and clinics	Orlando : Academic Press	1984
Thompson, Walter Palmer	Heredity and education; paper	[Regina, Sask., Province Publishers
Whitehead, George	The mending of mankind, the factors of racial health	London, Lutterworth
	Our tuberculous Negro : where is he now? : an appeal to the citizens and legislators of Maryland to lend active support to a certain definite legislative measure necessary for the immediate and effective control of tuberculosis.