The Black Stork - Eugenics and the Death of `Defective' Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915

In the late 1910s Dr. Harry J. Haiselden, a prominent Chicago surgeon, electrified the nation by allowing the deaths of at least six infants he diagnosed as "defectives". Seeking to publicize his efforts to eliminate the "unfit", he displayed the dying infants to journalists, wrote about them for the Hearst newspapers, and starred in a feature film about his crusade. Prominent Americans from Clarence Darrow to Helen Keller rallied to his support. The Black Stork tells this startling story, based on newly-rediscovered sources and long-lost motion pictures, in order to illuminate many broader controversies. The book shows how efforts to improve human heredity (eugenics) became linked with mercy-killing (euthanasia) and with race, class, gender, and ethnic hatreds. It documents how mass culture changed the meaning of medical concepts like "heredity" and "disease", and how medical controversies helped shape the commercial mass media. It demonstrates how cultural values influence science, and how scientific claims of objectivity have shaped modern culture. While focused on the formative years of early 20th century America, The Black Stork traces these issues from antiquity to the rise of Nazism, and to the "Baby Doe", assisted suicide, and human genome initiative debates of today.

List of contents

• Part I: Witholding Treatment


• 1: The Birth of a Controversy


• 2: Contexts to the Conflict


• 3: Identifying the Unfit: Biology and Culture in Eugenic Constructions of Hereditary Disease


• 4: Eliminating the Unfit: Euthanasia and Eugenics


• 5: Whoe Decides?: The Ironies of Professional Power


• Part II: Publicity


• 6: Mass Media Medicine


• 7: Eugenics of Film


• 8: The Black Stork


• 9: Medicine, Media, and Memory

Summary

In the 1910s, Dr Haiselden allowed the deaths of six infants he diagnozed as "defectives". His story highlights many other controversies. The book shows how efforts to improve human heredity became linked with euthanasia and shows how mass culture changed the meaning of concepts like "heredity".

Additional text

an appetite-whetting prelude to his intended larger study of American health films ... This is a case study which forcibly demonstrates the advantages to medical history of taking popular media seriously. We can await his promised larger study with some eagerness.

Product details

• Authors: Martin S. Pernick, Martin S. (Associate Professor of History Pernick, Pernick Martin S.
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.12.2019
• EAN: 9780195077315
• ISBN: 978-0-19-507731-5
• Dimensions: 162 mm x 241 mm x 24 mm
• Weight: 789 g
• Illustrations: 14 pp halftones
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; USA, Cultural Studies, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Death & Dying, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Demography, MEDICAL / History, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Genetics & Genomics, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, LAW / Right to Die, History of Medicine, United States of America, USA, Population & demography, Population and Demography, Genetics (non-medical), Ethical issues: euthanasia and right to die, Ethical Issues: Euthanasia & Right To Die