Medicine and Slavery: The Diseases and Health Care of Blacks in Antebellum Virginia... by Todd Lee Savitt

REVIEWS "In all details of symptoms and sores and cadavers, this is a meticulously researched analysis of medical and health conditions and a valuable account of the relationship between black health and white society. It is fresh and objective, and represents a major contribution to the understanding of the pre-Civil War South and its peculiar institution." -- Times Literary Supplement "This impressive work contains a fascinating analysis of sickle-cell anemia, heat and cold tolerance, lactose deficiency, tuberculosis, and other ills that plagued the slave population." -- Choice "No historian writing about slavery in America should be without this masterful study. No one learning about slavery should be without it. Savitt's work is indeed the definitive work on the subject." -- Journal of Mississippi History "Medicine and Slavery will be necessary reading for all scholars dealing with black history and the antebellum south, as well as those concerned with the history of medicine and medical thought." -- Journal of American History

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
This book is an excellent secondary resource. Todd Savitt has compiled information usuing primary resources that allows the reader to understand the practical elements of health care for African Americans as well as poor whites during the antebellum time period.