User:Muscogulus

2017-12-31T22:07:12Z

Muscogulus: First edit

Hi, I'm '''Robert P. Collins''' (Rob) from Birmingham, Alabama. I'm an uncompensated historian with a day job. I've published a little research on the Creek Indians of the American South, and I have an unfinished dissertation on the same subject.

My username, '''Muscogulus''', is from an old transcription error.

* The Creek Nation is ''Maskogvlge'' in the Creek/Muskogee language (''Mvskogvlge'' in modern spelling).
* Philadelphia naturalist William Bartram transcribed this as ''Muscogulge'' in his famous [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartram's_Travels book of southern travels] published in 1791. In his book's lengthy subtitle, Bartram dubbed the Creek Nation "the Muscogulges or Creek Confederacy."
* An anonymous scrivener in London, working on an 1824 bibliography, [https://books.google.com/books?id=GYZTAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PA66&dq=muscogulus&hl=en#v=onepage&q=muscogulus rendered the unfamiliar name ''Muscogulges'' as '''''Muscogulus.''''']

This accidental coinage looks like a diminutive Latin form of ''Mvskoke''/Muscogee. This caught my fancy. I take it as a kind of parable.

Medical Apartheid

2017-12-31T21:43:37Z

Muscogulus: Small spelling changes

{{Infobox book
| name = Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present
| author = Harriet A. Washington
| publisher = Doubleday
| pub_date = 2006
| pages = 404
| isbn = 9780767915472
| image = [[File:Medical_Apartheid.jpg|200px|alt=Cover]]
}}

Typically when the topic of ethics in medical research arises the most common image is that of the Nazi scientists at the Nuremberg Trials. The culmination of the trials resulted in the creation and adoption of the basic rules of research involving human subjects known as the Nuremberg Code. Among the many points the code the hallmarks include the lack of coercion, beneficence, and informed patient consent. As the trial brought forth a new standard in live human experimentation, across the Atlantic Ocean in Macon county Alabama a heinous medical experiment involving poor black sharecroppers was in full swing. The infamous experiment known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study involved the exploitation of hundreds of black men and their families for the sake scientific advancement. In modern times the study is often regarded by those in the medical community as a one time mistake steeped in the politics and racism of the mid twentieth century. Unfortunately, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study is merely one incident in a long line of medical crimes committed against generations of African Americans.

Harriet A. Washington author of Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, has produced a riveting account of the major medical research atrocities throughout the history of United States of America. She opens with a vignette of J. Marion Sims the man widely known and respected as “the father of gynecology” and a pioneer of women’s health. The statues of Sims dot the landscape of from South Carolina to the prestigious Columbia University in New York City attest his significance to American medicine. While he contributed a great deal to the advancement of gynecology, many of his gains were made possible by the untold suffering of the black slave women he operated on. The operations were a gruesome affair that caused many of his assistants to flee the operating rooms to escape the screams of the helpless victims who were operated on without the use of anesthesia. The bodies of the slave women were mutilated and their organs placed on display like pieces of art in a gallery. The point Washington makes with Sims is that the medical exploitation of blacks is a long running feature of medicine in the United States.

The goal of Washington was to document medical injustices suffered by blacks as well as note the residual effects these experiments have had on the relationship between blacks and the medical community. She wanted to show the fear that blacks have against the medical community is not the result of conspiracy theories or hearsay but a logical fear based on generations of mistreatment and exploitation by the hands of medical personnel black and white. Her goal was not to simply portray the largely white medical establishment as an evil entity violating the bodies of helpless and innocent blacks. Although blacks had suffered by the hands of doctors and researchers they were not silent and often resisted to the best of their abilities. Her book forgoes a strict chronological order and is organized into three parts. The first part “A Troubling Tradition,” is a fairly chronological documentation of the medical exploitation blacks were subjected to from the early colonies until the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1932. The second part “The Usual Subjects,” forgoes chronology to focus on certain at risk groups such as children and prisoners in the twentieth century. The final part “Race Technology, and Medicine,” focuses on modern as well as future issues like genetics research and bioterrorism.

The continual theme in the book was the inherent belief both on a conscious and sub conscious level that the lives of blacks were not as valuable as their white counterparts. Instead they became dehumanized vessels more useful as guinea pigs for untested medications and via autopsy a trove of medical information. The numerous tales like that of Casper Yeagin, sixty-eight year old a man who went missing in Washington D.C. for over a month only to be found at Howard Medical School dissection table. Deeper investigation revealed numerous clerical errors that highlighted the systematic failures between the police departments and the local hospital system in properly managing and identifying unknown black patients.(115) The Tuskegee Syphilis Study also engaged in similar acts. They coordinated with local healthcare providers and the federal government to prevent men from receiving treatment to maintain the study after the advent of penicillin as a treatment option. They went as far to offer free burial services to gain access to the corpses for autopsy.(164) Even in contemporary times the pattern continues, James Quinn a middle age black man famous from receiving an experimental artificial heart made by AbioCor in 2001. He like most of the other thirteen patients in the study had died within a year of receiving the heart transplant, suffering from a myriad of health complications resulting from the new mechanical heart. The important factor in the study was that 33 percent of the recipients were black although African Americans only make up 12 percent of the population.(349) The overrepresentation of blacks in the study stoked fears within the black community whether the study was for the benefit of the patients or simply a testing ground for perfecting experimental technology to be later used on majority white patients.

Washington was able to make a forceful argument that African American’s iatrophobia was indeed legitimate and not the result of rampant paranoia. She carefully notes that while not all judgments against the medical community are correct or helpful, the accusations by blacks come from generations of mistreatment and exploitation. Despite the overt opposition from individuals and institutions within the medical community in researching her book, Washington was able to employ a wide range of sources including legal documents, scientific journals, and secondary literature. In addition Washington herself took several premed courses including immunology and toxicology to increase her understanding of medical literature. Medical Apartheid stands apart from the previous historical works like The History of Negro Medicine, by Herbert Morais; An American Health Dilemma, by Drs. Linda Clayton and Michael Byrd; or Bones in the Basement, by Robert Blakely and Judith Harrington that had either too general or narrow in scope to accurately document the exploitation suffered by blacks. Her work is one of a few that attempts to provide a comprehensive history of the racial nature of medical research in America.

While the methods employed by the medical community have changed for the better from the barbaric practices of J. Marion Sims and the black grave robber Grandison Harris there is still room for improvement. The forms of exploitation have become more intricate and subtle even to the researchers themselves. The circumvention on parental consent and the use of dense medical jargon are some of the newer tactics of unethical researchers. Experiments based on faulty race based assumptions in urban areas devoid of diversity still pose a threat in contemporary times. Despite the generations of abuse suffered by blacks, across the nation skilled doctors and researchers are able to overcome some of the apprehension many blacks have towards medical field. There is still hope available for the future as increased efforts are being undertaken to improve diversity within the medical field as well as the lessons learned from previous generations cause scientist to remain ever vigilant to the pitfalls of unbridled research.

[[Category:Twentieth Century United States]]
[[Category:Wikify]]
[[Category:Book Summaries]]
[[Category:Harriet A. Washington]]

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User:Muscogulus

Medical Apartheid