How Black Slaves Were Sold as “Specimens” for Medical Experimentation

Slave bodies were a readily available medical commodity. The slave owner and the doctor conspired to to traffic these bodies for medical experiments.

By Takudzwa Hillary Chiwanza.

January 8th, 2020

Slavery was a horrendous epoch in the history of humankind. 

Black lives were treated merely as property and nothing beyond that. Medical advancement propounded by white medical doctors meant inevitable human experimentation. In the modern era, it was beyond any reasonable doubt that the marginalized, the poor and the vulnerable were exploited, with horrific consequences, for medical experimentation.

In the days of slavery, the lives of black slaves were regarded as nothing and black bodies were regularly sold off as specimens for the purposes of medical experimentation. The brutality of these medical experiments is well documented in history. The most infamous is probably the Tuskegee experiment in modern history. 

The U.S Public Health Service, in conjunction with the Tuskegee Institute, carried out a syphilis experiment on African-American men from 1932 to 1972. The study initially involved 600 men, and 399 had syphilis. 201 were free of the virus. The patients’ informed consent was a conspicuously absent feature in this wicked experiment. The study made the government observe the natural progression of the disease until the time of death. Hundreds of black men were untreated of syphilis because of a research experiment.

South America became notorious for the acquisition and exploitation of slave bodies. It was a common phenomenon to have experimentation on living human beings. Slave bodies were a readily available as medical commodity. The slave owner and the doctor conspired to traffic these bodies for medical experiments. The inherent evil nature of the slave system provided easy conditions for this to take place without much indignation. 

This article appears in its entirety at The African Exponent website. It can be read here.

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