In a 2016 study of medical students, 73% of all participants held at least one false belief about the biological differences between races. Furthermore, White medical students disproportionately believed the falsehood that Black people possessed a higher pain tolerance than White people. This survey reveals the pervasiveness of racism in the medical field, otherwise known as “medical racism”. Medical racism is an ideology that posits that racism and discrimination are profoundly ingrained in the social, political, and economic structures of society (both international and national). The ubiquity of medical racism is demonstrated in the way that minorites and people of color are afforded unequal and inequitable access to quality education, healthy food, livable wages, and affordable housing. People of color are faced with higher risks of illness and exposed to standards of care that are inferior to their White counterparts. Studies have shown that these discrepancies are present even when economic status is factored in. Hence, this unequal treatment can be attiributed to the explicit and/or implicit racial biases held by practitioners such as those in the aforementioned survey. The question, then, is how did such racist beliefs and practices become instilled in the medical system? The answer can be found within the institution of slavery and its associated practices. The story of Dr. Thomas Hamilton and enslaved man, Fed (later John Brown), represents such a brutal and inhumane practice. Dr. Thomas Hamilton (1790-1859) was a prominent slaveowner and physician from Washington, GA who spent the majority of his adulthood in Clinton, GA. Hamilton was the father of Colonel Charles A. Hamilton and Lieutenant Algernon Sidney Hamilton, as well as the father-in-law of Sarah “Sallie” Bowen Hamilton Swanson (1838-1912). In 1820, at the age of thirty, Hamilton graduated from what was at the time the most renowned medical school in the country, the University of Pennsylvania, and afterward relocated to Clinton, GA where on April 19, 1821 he married Malinda Clower (1803-1882), a member of a wealthy local family. Hamilton eventually became one of the original trustees of the Medical Academy of Georgia, as well as a member of the Georgia State Senate in 1844. John Brown (1818-1876), born Fed, was born in Southhampton County, Virginia. Brown was sold to Starling Finney, a slave dealer, in 1830 at twelve-years-old and taken to Georgia where he was sold to a man named Thomas Stevens. It was during his stint at Steven’s plantation when Brown was lent to Dr. Thomas Hamilton for medical experimentation as reimbursement for Hamilton’s curing Steven’s of an illness. As a result of this trade, Brown became the unwilling subject of Hamilton’s experiments. The first experiment that Brown was coerced into participating in required him to sit on a stool placed on a wooden plank that was laid across a lit firepit. Brown was forced to sit on the stool until he passed out from heat exhaustion. This experiment was repeated multiple times a day until Hamilton discovered that a cayenne-pepper solution assisted Brown in withstanding the heat. As a result of such experimentations, Hamilton accumulated a small fortune from selling placebo pills to the public advising each patron that the efficacy of the pill was contingent upon them taking it with a cayenne-pepper tea. Thus, Hamilton profited from the brutality that he inflicted on Brown. The second experiment involved Hamilton carving blisters and callouses into Brown's skin in an attempt to prove the falsehood that Black people possessed a high pain tolerance due to having thick skin. In his book, Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Now in England, Brown describes this experiment as particularly cruel and painful. As a result of Fed’s treatment at the hands of Hamilton, he escaped; eventually changing his name to John Brown and fleeing to England where he worked as a carpenter and herbalist until his death in 1876. Ironically, John Brown is also the name of the abolitionist who despised Hamilton’s son, Charles, due to Charles’s leading the Marias des Cygnes Massacre in Kansas in 1858. Unfortunately, the effects of those practices carried out by slavers such as Dr. Thomas Hamilton are still prevalent in our present-day medical system. These biases and stereotypes could, and often have, resulted in serious and life-threatening effects for Black patients seeking medical care. Sources Boney, F. N. “Doctor Thomas Hamilton: Two Views of a Gentleman of the Old South.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 28, no. 3, 1967, pp. 288–292. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/273667. Accessed 22 Aug. 2021. Monique Tello, MD. “Racism and Discrimination in Health Care: Providers and Patients.” Harvard Health, 16 Jan. 2017, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/racism-discrimination-health-care-providers-patients-2017011611015. Type: Story
