The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915 PDF

Rating: (4 reviews) Author: Martin S. Pernick ISBN : 9780195135398 New from $27.94 Format: PDF

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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.

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (July 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195135393
• ISBN-13: 978-0195135398
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of "Defective" Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures since 1915 PDF

This is one of those extraordinary book finds that comes about through sheer serendipity. This book was not recommended, was not widely read, but had been listed as a reference in another book in my readings about the historical context of the medical holocaust which happened here in the United States prior to Nazi Germany's excursion into hell. The title and slight mention given in a bibliography made me stop what I was doing and head for Amazon.com to find out what the book was about. The slight blurb was enough to pique my interest and I sent for the book.

This book is one of the most unique stories I have read in the onslaught of material on the eugenicists and their prejudicial science. Pernick is a historical biographer of medical practicioners and of the early films produced promoting eugenic ideals. During the early 1900's an American physician, Haiselden, very publicly 'allowed' a new-born infant with disabilities to die through withholding food, water, and surgical treatment. This occurrence was not an unusual one for physicians in general. Infanticide had occurred on one level or another, by physicians, midwives, and parents for years especially when infants were disabled and the families were poor. The difference lay in how this particular physican handled the media attention he received. This man courted the media to promote his views on physician assisted killing when children were born with disabilities or deformities. He went even farther and 'starred' in a film which portrayed the situation and the accompanying ethics as held by eugenicists and those who proposed euthanasia for the unwanted in the United States.

The history of early film-making coincides with the major years of influence of American eugenicists.