Medical Apartheid Set 1

Iatrophobia, or excessive or irrational fear of physicians or medical care, is an emotional disorder routinely based on trauma, distrust, and experience. In African American history, this fear has a particular and painful genesis that is inextricably linked with centuries of abuse and exploitation in the name of medical research and care (Washington 90). The word assumes a far more important meaning when one reflects on how enslaved Africans and their progeny were exposed to unethical experimentation, absence of informed consent, and general mistreatment by the medical profession.

Malingering, on the other hand, is the conscious production or simulation of physical or psychological symptoms for secondary gain, such as avoidance of work or obtaining drugs. Alozai and McPherson state that in the past, during slavery, physicians readily accused slaves of malingering when they complained of illness or pain (32). These crimes were repeatedly employed to justify forced labor in the context of valid medical grievances, thus supporting racist assumptions that African Americans were inherently deceptive or insensitive to pain.

In an attempt to establish the intellectual superiority of Europeans over Africans, 18th- and 19th-century physicians employed pseudoscientific practices like craniometry and phrenology. These entailed measurements of skull size and shape, inappropriately linking cranial capacity to intelligence. This pseudoscience was employed to dehumanize Black people and justify their subordination even though it was entirely lacking in empirical evidence (Washington 90). Not only did these practices intensify racial stereotypes, but they also provided the foundation for systemic variation in medical care and education.

The relationship between the physicians and slaves was largely exploitative. Enslaved people were used by physicians as tools of experimentation, at times without anesthesia or consent. Slaves were property, and as such, their bodily integrity was routinely disregarded in the interest of advancing medical science. Slaves were forced into medical experiments, surgeries, and autopsies with little regard for their pain or dignity. This event left a legacy of distrust of the medical field among the Black community—a sentiment that remains true today.

Works Cited

Alozai, Ubaid Ullah, and Pamela K. McPherson. “Malingering.” PubMed, 12 June 2023, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29939614.

Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Harlem Moon, 2008.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

Question