Medical Experimentation and Demostration

"The Use of Blacks for Medical Experimentation and Demonstration in the Old South" by Todd L. Savitt

Research Question: Has the history of medical science been built on the foundation of unethical medical research/experimentation on African Americans?

Summary: This article went through many cases involving the experimentation of Blacks in the South. Black bodies often found their way to dissecting tables, operating amphitheaters, classroom to bedside demonstrations, and experimental facilities. One event mentioned involved Dr. Thomas Hamilton, who borrowed a slave named Fed in order to test some of his medications on a human subject. He had a hole dug in the ground which he then had heated with fire to a high temperature. He had Fed sit naked on a stool in a platform placed with this oven like pit with only his head above the ground. To retain the heat Hamilton fastened wet blankets over the hole. Fed took different medications each time he entered the pit, so that Hamilton could determine which preparation best enabled the slave to withstand high temperatures. Another event involved Dr. James Marion Sims, who used slave women to find a cure for vesico-vaginal fistula. Vesico-vaginal fistula is a break in the wall separating the bladder from the vagina, which allows urine to pass involuntary to the outside from the vagina rather than from the urethra. Women suffering from the defect, usually the result of trauma during childbirth. This defect was mostly seen in African American women after childbirth because of the lack of food and shelter their bodies were not able to fully develop before they carried a child. Sims went about finding a way to surgically treat the fistula and in order to do this he used Black women to be his rats. He did surgery on them for weeks multiple times a day without anesthesia until he finally mastered the surgery. These events and many more mentioned within the article allowed me to have other topics to research in order to build upon my research question.

I found this article through Google chrome linked to the Auraria Library. I used the keywords experimentation, Black slaves which lead me to many other articles I thought I would never find. This article led to approx. 7 more articles regarding my research.


Savitt, Todd L. "The Use of Blacks for Medical Experimentation and Demonstration in the Old South." The Journal of Southern History 48.3 (1982). 331-348. Print.