Stigma, race, and disease in 20th century America

The image of disease carriers suggested a social menace whose collective superstitions, ignorance, and carefree demeanour stood as a stubborn affront to modern notions of hygiene and scientific understanding.5 In the context of an economy where black people worked as cooks, gardeners, servants, and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Lancet (British edition) 2006-02, Vol.367 (9509), p.531-533
Main Author: Wailoo, Keith
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Disease transmission
Genetic Diseases, Inborn
Global health
Health care policy
History of medicine
History, 20th Century
Humans
Infectious diseases
Prejudice
Race relations
Race Relations - history
Racism
Sickle cell anemia
Society
Stereotyping
Transfusion
United States
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Summary:The image of disease carriers suggested a social menace whose collective superstitions, ignorance, and carefree demeanour stood as a stubborn affront to modern notions of hygiene and scientific understanding.5 In the context of an economy where black people worked as cooks, gardeners, servants, and caregivers in white homes (and where "Typhoid Mary", the asymptomatic carrier, had become a household name), such images of the African-American as "disease vector" highlighted a prevalent, pervasive and long-lasting anxiety that persists in contemporary global health discussions-particularly where economies continue to necessitate movement across borders and among peoples. "What a dilemma," he says, "now how can we tell the white from the negro plasma?" And a fourth panel shows a wounded black soldier saying to his white doctor "if I need a transfusion, gimme anybody's blood, so long as I get back to the front".7 In such popular venues and in scholarly circles too, it seemed increasingly obvious that these assumptions about group inferiority interacted with ideas about disease (dangerous entities hidden in "negro blood") in service of a larger goal: maintaining a segregated social order. If we are to understand and reduce stigma in relation to global health in the developed and developing world today, we must pay increased attention to these complex historical and sociological processes by which stigmatised categories are formed and deconstructed and examining their influence on societies and individuals today.
ISSN:0140-6736
1474-547X
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68186-5