Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Tuskegee syphilis experiment

  • Blaming Tuskegee for present ills

    Adil MenonChicago, Illinois, United States The USPHS Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male is United States medical history’s most tragic example of the road to Hell being paved with good intentions. In the early 20th century, the Public Health Service and the Rosenwald Fund looked to Alabama’s Maycomb County and found a…

  • Movie review: Miss Evers’ Boys

    P. Ravi Shankar Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia   Segregated water fountains. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. U.S. Army photo. 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…

  • The forgotten many of the Guatemalan Syphilis Experiments

    Harsh Patolia Roanoke, Virginia, United States   Inoculation site of participant. Image from the Records of Dr. John C. Cutler housed in the National Archives. In 2005, medical historian Dr. Susan Reverby foraged through boxes in the stuffy archives of the library of the University of Pittsburgh for the papers of Thomas Parran, the surgeon…

  • Freedman’s Hospital

    Yanglu ChenNew Jersey, United States The name itself, Freedmen’s Hospital, betrays a sense of bitter conflict: that there existed men unfreed, and they were not treated here—and that even the freed men had only this hospital. In fact, Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington D.C. was the first of its kind because it provided medical care to…