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HIST 234: Epidemics in Western Society Since 1600

Lecture 21 - The Tuskegee Experiment. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, carried out in Macon, Alabama, from 1932 to 1972, is a notorious episode in the checkered history of medical experimentation. In one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the U.S., researchers deceived a group of 399 black male syphilitics into participating in a study with no therapeutic value. These "volunteers" were not treated as patients, but rather as experimental subjects, or walking cadavers. Even after the development of penicillin, the Tuskegee group was denied effective treatment. Despite regularly published scholarly articles, forty years passed before there was any protest in the medical community. The aftereffects of the study, along with the suffering of its victims, include a series of congressional investigations, the drafting of medical ethics guidelines, and the establishment of independent review boards. (from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 21 - The Tuskegee Experiment

Time Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00] 1. Tuskegee Syphilis Study, 1932-72
[00:05:26] 2. Origins
[00:26:23] 3. Continuation
[00:45:45] 4. Legacy

References
Lecture 21 - The Tuskegee Experiment
Instructor: Professor Frank Snowden. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Introduction to the Course
Lecture 02 - Classical Views of Disease: Hippocrates, Galen, and Humoralism
Lecture 03 - Plague (I): Pestilence as Disease
Lecture 04 - Plague (II): Responses and Measures
Lecture 05 - Plague (III): Illustrations and Conclusions
Lecture 06 - Smallpox (I): "The Speckled Monster"
Lecture 07 - Smallpox (II): Jenner, Vaccination, and Eradication
Lecture 08 - Nineteenth-Century Medicine: The Paris School of Medicine
Lecture 09 - Asiatic Cholera (I): Personal Reflections
Lecture 10 - Asiatic Cholera (II): Five Pandemics
Lecture 11 - The Sanitary Movement and the "Filth Theory of Disease"
Lecture 12 - Syphilis: From the "Great Pox" to the Modern Version
Lecture 13 - Contagionism versus Anticontagionism
Lecture 14 - The Germ Theory of Disease
Lecture 15 - Tropical Medicine as a Discipline
Lecture 16 - Malaria (I): The Case of Italy
Lecture 17 - Malaria (II): The Global Challenge
Lecture 18 - Tuberculosis (I): The Era of Consumption
Lecture 19 - Tuberculosis (II): After Robert Koch
Lecture 20 - Pandemic Influenza
Lecture 21 - The Tuskegee Experiment
Lecture 22 - AIDS (I)
Lecture 23 - AIDS (II)
Lecture 24 - Poliomyelitis: Problems of Eradication
Lecture 25 - SARS, Avian Inluenza, and Swine Flu: Lessons and Prospects
Lecture 26 - Final Q & A