TY  - GEN
T1  - Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America
A1  - Schwalm, Leslie A.
LA  - eng
PB  - The University of North Carolina Press
YR  - 2023
UL  - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/doab-20.500.12854-121553
AB  - This social and cultural history of Civil War medicine and science sheds important light on the question of why and how anti-Black racism survived the destruction of slavery. During the war, white Northerners promoted ideas about Black inferiority under the guise of medical and scientific authority. In particular, the Sanitary Commission and Army medical personnel conducted wartime research aimed at proving Black medical and biological inferiority. They not only subjected Black soldiers and refugees from slavery to substandard health care but also scrutinized them as objects of study. This mistreatment of Black soldiers and civilians extended after life to include dissection, dismemberment, and disposal of the Black war dead in unmarked or mass graves and medical waste pits. Simultaneously, white medical and scientific investigators enhanced their professional standing by establishing their authority on the science of racial difference and hierarchy.   Drawing on archives of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, recollections of Civil War soldiers and medical workers, and testimonies from Black Americans, Leslie A. Schwalm exposes the racist ideas and practices that shaped wartime medicine and science. Painstakingly researched and accessibly written, this book helps readers understand the persistence of anti-Black racism and health disparities during and after the war.
SN  - 9798890862969
SN  - 9781469672694
SN  - 9781469672717
SN  - 9781469672687
KW  - Civil War
KW  - Civil War medicine
KW  - United States Sanitary Commission
KW  - race and medicine
KW  - military racism
KW  - military medicine
KW  - medical experimentation
KW  - scientific racism
KW  - anthropometry
KW  - Black soldiers
KW  - enslaved people
KW  - refugees from slavery
KW  - white physicians
KW  - autopsies
KW  - dissection
KW  - Black women
KW  - white women
KW  - burial
KW  - hospital workers
KW  - hospitals
KW  - northern racism
KW  - Black medical practitioners
KW  - contraband
KW  - disease
KW  - burial grounds
KW  - human remains
KW  - white philanthropy
KW  - segregation
KW  - racial inequalities
KW  - racial injustice
KW  - knowledge production
ER  -