Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: racism

  • Promoting early 20th century American eugenics under the guise of science

    Joseph LockhartSaty Satya-MurtiCalifornia, United States Few adherents of pseudoscientific beliefs have wreaked as much societal and human damage as did the eugenicists during the first half of the 20th century. In America, these beliefs led to large-scale sterilization, immigration controls with flimsy rationales,1 and support of racist education and funding.2 Worldwide, they set the stage…

  • Because of their race

    Ceres Alhelí Otero PenicheMexico City, Mexico When in 1948 the National Party came to power in South Africa, the all-white government put into effect the racial segregation laws known as apartheid. The non-white population was forced to live, work, and spend their free time in separate neighborhoods. This divided the country’s population into four main…

  • Movie review: Miss Evers’ Boys

    P. Ravi ShankarKuala Lumpur, Malaysia The Tuskegee Syphilis study was a dark chapter in United States history. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) began to study the natural history of progression of syphilis. The study was originally called the “Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in the negro male” and is now referred…

  • Movie review: Pressure Point—Treating the hateful patient

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “You sing ‘My country ’tis of thee’ while they walk all over you.”—The patient, Pressure Point Pressure Point (1962) is a “doctor movie” that is “all but unknown to the general public.”1 This is unfortunate, since it contains important messages as well as some splendid acting. The story is told as a…

  • Movie review: No Way Out

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   A lumbar puncture being performed. Brainhell, 2006. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. The more things change, the more they stay the same. – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–1890)   No Way Out is a 1950 movie about medicine and racism that deserves more attention than it has received. The story takes…

  • A bad taste in the mouth: over fifty years of doubt about MSG

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States Monosodium glutamate’s bad reputation started with one letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. From there, the truth was confused by misinformation and prejudice. Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote to NEJM in April of 1968, sharing his observation that after eating at American Chinese restaurants he experienced “numbness…

  • Presentism

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States The Oxford English Dictionary defines presentism as “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.” The term may have been used as far back as the 1870s and applies to acts, beliefs, and people that were acceptable or even…

  • Plagues and prejudice

    Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States It was a calm, clear January morning on the gritty streets of paradise. Honolulu, the capital of the newly-annexed U.S. territory of Hawaii, was ushering out a century of upheaval that had included the arrival of explorers, missionaries, and deadly diseases such as smallpox and measles; the overthrow of…

  • Bleeding science dry: The history of scientific racism and blood

    Matthew CasasKansas City, United States One might be familiar with the expression “We All Bleed Red.” But what exactly does blood have to say about our “humanity”? Ripe with good intention, the aforementioned mantra represents a campaign to promote peace by winning over the hearts and minds of those assumed to be unaware of a…

  • Medicine and trust, behind bars

    Gail BurkeNew Orleans, Louisiana, United States Lack of trust can be an impenetrable barrier to the doctor-patient relationship and healing. A fundamental principle of medical anthropology is that, when faced with illness, the individual first turns to traditional remedies and cultural practices in which he has faith. If illness persists and vulnerability deepens, he may…