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." 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. Martin Pernick tells this captivating story--uncovering forgotten sources and long-lost motion pictures--in order to show how efforts to improve human heredity (eugenics) became linked with mercy killing, as well as with race, class, gender and ethnicity. It documents the impact of cultural values on science along with the way scientific claims of objectivity shape modern culture. While focused on 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

The Black Stork uses the story of a Chicago surgeon who, in the 1910s, allowed the deaths of infants he diagnosed as "defectives", to illuminate broader questions: how efforts to improve human heredity became linked with mercy killing and social prejudices; how medicine influenced modern culture; and how mass culture redefined medical concepts.

Product details

• Authors: Martin S. Pernick, Pernick Martin S.
• Publisher: Oxford Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 12.10.2000
• EAN: 9780195135398
• ISBN: 978-0-19-513539-8
• Dimensions: 232 mm x 156 mm x 19 mm
• Weight: 549 g
• Illustrations: black and white photographs
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Biology; 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