1700 - 1900
Read about 18th and 19th century medicine and the foundations of our anatomical knowledge
in the United States.
PLEASE NOTE: Images and descriptions displayed in this museum may be disturbing for some viewers.
Discretion advised.
FROM GRAVEYARD TO CADAVER LAB一GRAVE ROBBING OF AFRICAN AMERICAN BODIES
Grave robbing of black bodies occurred during from the 19th to mid-20th century to meet the demand of cadavers needed for medical schools across the United States. The Old Medical College of Augusta, Georgia was the site of where grave robbers would place the collected cadavers for anatomical dissection by medical students.
[Image: Library of Virginia, 1896. Two black men attend to a wet and deceased black body from a wooden barrel in an auditorium with several seats and an open coffin.]
INNOCENT SKULLS & MALICIOUS IDEAS
Used as justification for the many acts of prejudice seen around the word, craniology has been used to give scientific reasoning to “inherit” differences between races, and why some, are less human than others.
[Image: Joasiah, Nott C, (1868). Artist sketch of one black man, one white man, and a chimpanzee and their skulls.]
ELLIS ISLAND IMMIGRANTS
From 1892-1924, immigrants boarded crowded ships that carried them to Ellis Island, New York, in search of better opportunities in America. On the island, physicians had about six seconds to examine each immigrant for dozens of diseases, and would mark the patient with chalk with one of the symbols listed in the medical exam chart if they had an illness.
[Image: The medical examination chart, courtesy of the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Foundation, 1892. The chalk symbols used at Ellis Island and what each symbol represented.]
PHRENOLOGY
Phrenology emerged in the United States in 1832, and was used to assess individuals’ mental health, personality aspects, and more based solely on the shape of ones’ head.
[Image: Phrenology Bust c. 1850, courtesy of Case Western Reserve University. Phrenology bust artifact with labeled regions of the head.]
ETHER AS ANESTHESIA
Anesthesia plays a special role in many procedures in today’s operating rooms, but this wasn’t always the case. After ether’s first recorded use as anesthesia during dental surgery, anesthesia was used on selective patients.
[image: Wellcome Library, 1912. This oil painting is part of a collection created by Ernest Board, depicting the first public usage of ether as anesthesia in 1846.]
YELLOW FEVER: SELF EXPERIMENTATION
Self experimentation was not a popular route for researchers, especially in this time period but Stubbins Ffirth thought outside the box. He thought he could figure out the transmission of yellow fever on his own, by consuming affected yellow fever patients vomit.
[Image: Alphahistory.com, (2016), picture of the researcher]
BULLET PROBES
The American Civil War led to major experimentation of new surgical techniques meant to combat increasingly lethal wounds caused by improvements of bullet technology. One of the methods developed was the bullet probe technique.
[image: Courtesy of Wellcome Images. Creative Commons (BY-SA). An example of various types of probes and forceps designed to remove bullets]
MILK TRANSFUSION
In the past, milk transfusions were tried as a medical solution for malnutrition and blood shortages, but they caused harmful effects like headaches and rapid heartbeat. After reports of harm emerged in the US, they were discontinued due to high death rates and adverse reactions.
[Photo: Oberman H. A. (1969).]
THE VACCINATION OF SMALLPOX & VULNERABLE CARRIERS
The eradication of smallpox was due to the successful vaccination in the United States. The practice of vaccinating people was mastered by experimenting on enslaved people and using vulnerable groups as carriers
[Image: An advertisement of a cargo with enslaved black people who are carrying the smallpox vaccine from Africa to Boston. The advertisement emphasizes that the boat has been quarantined and the men onboard are healthy.]