Ocean State Libraries

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The story of modern medicine and bioethics—and, indeed, race relations—is refracted beautifully, and movingly.”—Entertainment Weekly
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM HBO® STARRING OPRAH WINFREY AND ROSE BYRNE • ONE OF THE “MOST INFLUENTIAL” (CNN), “DEFINING” (LITHUB), AND “BEST” (THE...

The accomplishments of pioneering doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical...

"My name is Ron Lacks. I am the oldest grandson of Henrietta Lacks, a beautiful and strong woman whose cells have become one of the most important cell lines in the history of medicine. I am writing this book to tell the truth. I want my grandmother's story told from the perspective of the people who knew her best. My grandmother's story is one that deserves to be told truthfully and accurately--and not at the expense of our family's name. That is...

"In 1846, a young surgeon, J. Marion Sims ("The Father of Gynecology"), began several years of experimental surgeries on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha ("The Mother of Gynecology"). This series of procedures--performed without anesthesia and resulting in Anarcha's so-called "cure"--forever altered the path of women's health. Despite brutal practices and failed techniques, Sims proclaimed himself the curer of obstetric fistula, a horrific...

"The Deadliest Disease in America, a documentary film produced and directed by Crystal R. Emery p.g.a., traces the history of racism in American healthcare, beginning with the brutal medical experimentation that enslaved people were forced to undergo. As this story unfolds over our nation's history, the very same inequalities and biases continue to plague our healthcare system, creating disparities in the quality of care that Black, Brown, and Indigenous...

"The sad history of young children, especially institutionalized children, being used as cheap and available test subjects - the raw material for experimentation - started long before the atomic age and went well beyond exposure to radioactive isotopes. Experimental vaccines for hepatitis, measles, polio and other diseases, exploratory therapeutic procedures such as electroshock and lobotomy, and untested pharmaceuticals such as curare and thorazine...