Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)
And the History of Health Sciences Program (UCSF)
Andrea Patterson
California State University, Fullerton
-
Germs and Jim Crow: Scientific Racism, Microbiology, and Public Health in Progressive Era United States
This presentation investigates the impact that some of the new academic disciplines, such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, racially-based pathology, and genetics, had in promoting scientific racism. Proclaiming a physiological difference among the races, scientists across the disciplines provided scientific justification to preexisting cultural and social prejudices. The disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates among blacks were seen as a consequence of inherent racial deficiencies that rendered any attempt to ameliorate their situation futile. While the belief in a different pathology in blacks initially deterred most health officials from taking any action, advances in medicine and microbiology, in particular the germ theory, stirred a variety of responses out of sheer self-preservation. Ironically, in an era of deepening scientific racism, public health initiatives based on a better understanding of disease-causing microorganisms gradually improved black health. However, some public health measures were hijacked by eugenicists and racists and, rather than addressing the ill health of blacks, public health policy complied with the new laws of heredity by promoting drastic measures such as involuntary sterilization or even abortion.
4:00PM
Monday, October 22, 2007
279 Dwinelle Hall
UC Berkeley
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu
