Germs and Jim Crow: The Impact of Microbiology on Public Health Policies in Progressive Era American South

Abstract

Race proved not merely a disadvantage in securing access to prompt and appropriate medical care, but often became a life and death issue for blacks in the American South during the early decades of the twentieth century. This article investigates the impact some of the new academic disciplines such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, racially based pathology and genetics had in promoting scientific racism. The disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates among blacks were seen as a consequence of inherent racial deficiencies that rendered any attempt to ameliorate their situation as futile. While the belief in a different pathology in blacks initially deterred most health officials from taking any action, advances in medicine and microbiology, in particular the germ theory, stirred a variety of responses out of sheer self preservation, as fears among whites at the first sign of an epidemic initiated sporadic and limited actions. Ironically, in an era of deepening scientific racism, public health initiatives based on a better understanding of disease causing microorganisms, gradually improved black health. However, some public health measures were hijacked by eugenicists and racists and, rather than addressing the ill health of blacks, public health policy complied with the new laws of heredity by promoting drastic measures such as involuntary sterilization or even abortion. This further complicated the strained relationship between southern blacks and health care professionals and effected ongoing distrust towards public healthcare services.

Historical Insights on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and Racial Disparities: Illuminating a Path Forward

“…A confluence of factors, including social policies of racial exclusion and discrimination, unequal provision of health care, housing inequality, malnutrition, chronic respiratory disease, and increased epidemiologic burden of infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, whooping cough, and infant diarrheal illnesses), contributed to lower life expectancy for black Americans (25). New academic disciplines, such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, genetics, and eugenics, helped promote theories of biological determinism, which compounded older views attributing poor health outcomes to the inferior qualities of black Americans (48). The Jim Crow laws boosted white supremacy with these ideologies to enforce racial segregation, and between 1916 and 1919, in the thick of the influenza pandemic, approximately half a million blacks fled the punitive South for Midwestern and Northern cities in the now-famous Great Migration.…”

Effects of Exposure to Stereotype Cues on Contamination Aversion and Avoidance in African Americans

“…Even in today's society, African Americans continue to be characterized has having less of a human essence than Caucasians (e.g., Boccato, Cortes, Demoulin, & Leyens, 2007;Leary, 2005;Patterson, 2009). Portraying African Americans as unclean justified established boundaries and the social hierarchy (e.g., Hodson & Costello, 2007) and coping with the stereotype may have required African Americans to adopt the practice of excessive vigilance for and avoidance of sources of contagion.…”

“…that was to be avoided (Bobo, 2011). Indeed, instilling anxiety over contagious disease germs fostered racist ideology by characterizing African Americans as careless about personal hygiene (Patterson, 2009;Wailoo, 2006).…”

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“…Early studies focused on the link between influenza and Schizophrenia, but other infectious agents such as toxoplasmosis and bacterial infections [99] have also been associated with the disease. "To examine and identify the causal relationship between the neural and behavioral consequences of prenatal exposure and immune challenges, the effects of maternal challenges with influenza virus, as well as other viruses (e.g., borna disease virus, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, cytomegalovirus), and immune activating agents have been investigated in animal models" [100]. "These animal models involve exposure of pregnant rats or mice to an immune challenge with either influenza, the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS), or the viral mimic polyriboinosinic-polyribo-cytidilic acid (PolyI: C) during gestation and corresponding assessment of brain and behavioral effects in the offspring.…”