Enslaved Africans and doctors in South Carolina.
This interpretation of the relationship between enslavement and American medicine in 19th century South Carolina reveals the intimacy that existed between Africans enslaved in that state and the doctors who practiced and taught there. Enslaved Africans were resourceful and reliable medical figures in the slave community. Their knowledge of medical botany permeated the slave quarters and plantation hospitals and was appropriated into southern medical knowledge. The trajectories of the careers of three South Carolina physicians are tied to their practice around and on the enslaved. The beginnings of gynecological surgery are linked to 1840s experimentation on enslaved African women performed by one of them.
Black and Hispanic Studies Department, Baruch College-CUNY, New York, New York 10010, USA. martia_goodson@baruch.cuny.edu
Martia Graham
MG
Goodson
D001741:Black or African American / Q000266:history* / Q000523:psychology; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000266:history; D005260:Female; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history; D013509:Gynecologic Surgical Procedures / Q000266:history; D029001:Herbal Medicine / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006805:Human Experimentation / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D012940:Social Problems / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history*; D013022:South Carolina; D014481:United States