I was confused as to why Memphis
was so willing to label itself as struggling with providing medical care to its
population, but I think I may have figured part of it out. In the beginning
after Oppenheimer’s study began in 1935, Memphis was singled out for having “the
highest infant death rate in America”(69) and Memphis’s officials blamed “the
waves of undesirable newcomers”(75) which were mostly made out of the influx of
African Americans who were leaving the countryside. The officials took this
opportunity to acquire PWA funds that they used to build twenty-three new
clinics, and this opportunity resulted in “closer scrutiny and surveillance of
the ailments of Memphis’s poor and African American populations” which is a
recurrent theme in history (76). The most important aspect of this is that
officials realized they could use infant mortality as a means to bring in
federal funding to Memphis. With federal funding, Memphis’s economy would be
stimulated, more jobs created, and this is especially critical in the era of
the Great Depression. Once again, black bodies are being used to help the white
community gain success.
Using a
medical problem that was ignorantly caused to obtain more federal funds happens
again fifteen years later. According to Wailoo, “the Memphis community was
quite willing to advertise the city’s health problems as research opportunities”(92)
with geographical circumstances and the African American community continuing “to
be portrayed as the principal reasons for Memphis’s poor disease ratings”
(104). The only differences this time were that some African Americans could
pay for their healthcare, but because of Jim Crow laws, there was not one
hospital that provided suitable healthcare to the African American community
willing to pay, and that penicillin and electrophoresis helped make sickle cell
anemia visible. Research opportunities would help increase the reputation of
Memphis as a medical academic hub in which leading research was conducted.
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