American Paleontologist and Eugenicist.
Dr. Hamilton conducted cruel experiments on John Brown to test treatments for heatstroke.
Who: Dr. Thomas Hamilton What: Dr. Thomas Hamilton conducted painful experiments on an enslaved man named John Brown.
When: Conducted his experiments in 1904
Where: Georgia, USA.
Details: Dr. Hamilton conducted cruel experiments on John Brown to test treatments for heatstroke. Brown was subjected to extreme heat and other torturous conditions to observe the effects on his body. Hamilton sought to prove that Black individuals were more resilient to harsh conditions.
Why and How It Was Racist: These experiments dehumanized John Brown and were based on the belief that Black people could endure more pain than white people. Hamilton's work aimed to justify the brutal conditions enslaved individuals were forced to endure.
Sources:
Books:
Brown, J. (1855). Slave life in Georgia: A narrative of the life, sufferings, and escape of John Brown, a fugitive slave, now in England. Xerox University Microfilms.
Washington, H. A. (2006). Medical apartheid: The dark history of medical experimentation on Black Americans from colonial times to the present. Doubleday Books.
Websites:
Villarosa, L. (2019, August 14). How false beliefs in physical racial difference still live in medicine today. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/racial-differences-doctors.html