An American Health Dilemma, Volume One: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race: Beginnings to... |
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An American Health Dilemma, Volume One: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race: Beginnings to...
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by W. Michael Byrd
Sales Rank: 694183
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Discount: 34 %
$5.93
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 588 pages
Published by: RoutledgeEdition: 1st Edition August 15, 2000
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0415924499
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0415924498
Book Dimensions:
8.9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
Weighs: 2.1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
In the first of a projected two-volume work, the authors, both physicians and senior research scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health, document how, from their first arrival on these shores, blacks received inferior health care. Slaves faced a multitude of health risks: among them were accidents, whippings, cold, heat, exhaustion (pregnant slaves often miscarried) and poor sanitation. Planters rarely summoned white physicians to treat their slaves; generally, black grannies, midwives, root doctors and healers cared for their people. African-American health got worse during and after the Civil War, when the imperfect plantation health care system vanished overnight. A racist postwar society used Darwinism, biological determinism and skull measurements to argue that African-Americans were destined to poor health and extinction. In response, led by pioneering black doctors like James McCune Smith and David John Peck, African-Americans built their own medical schools and hospitals. Black physicians became community leaders and proclaimed health care a civil right. Still, at century's end, African-Americans were segregated and excluded from the mainstream health system. This is an important book, but it is not a well-organized, well-written work of history. The authors attempt to pack several books under one cover: a history of racism over the last 2,000 years; a survey of ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Arabian medicine; an indictment of the U.S. health care system and of modern America as a hopelessly racist land; and a book of political advocacy and reform. The best part of this volume is its last half, containing the actual history of African-American health from 1619 forward. The dense, stilted, academic prose style serves the authors poorly, but their book contains too much valuable information to ignore. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Byrd and his wife, Clayton, are affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. Their book, the first of two volumes, presents current statistics on racial disparities in American healthcare as a prolog to a comprehensive and heavily documented history of healthcare by and for black Americans. The authors trace the history of African American medicine, from its traditional roots in Egyptian and sub-Saharan practices that were brought to the New World by slave healers and midwives, through the remarkable black doctors who broke the color line of 19th-century medicine, to the founding of Howard University's Medical School in 1867, and the beginning of its long and distinguished service to American medicine. This amazing story takes place, however, in the context of a parallel narrative outlining the appalling cruelty, neglect, and scientific racism that mark the medical history of the American slave trade and its post-Civil War aftermath. This path-breaking work and its future companion volume will long remain an essential reference for scholars and serious readers in both medical history and African American studies.DKathy Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida, St. Petersburg
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Reader Reviews
An American Health Dilemma, by W. Michael Bryd and Linda A Clayton presents the challenge of the gross disparity in health care in America. Tracing the history of Western racial bias which has informed the medical world's relation to people of African descent, the authors have presented a clear demonstration of the effects of racism on medical care in the United States of America. This perspective is an important one, as the nation again considers the disintegration of health care for all. This well documented study, is readable and challenging to all who are interested in the future of our society.
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An American Health Dilemma, Volume One: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race: Beginnings to...
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Price: $5.93
Updated on 6-21-2008.
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