ID# 680:
"The South's fight for race purity," by R.W. Wooley, Pearson's Magazine
Date:
Circa 1910
Pages: (1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8)
Source:
American Philosophical Society, ERO, MSC77,SerI,Box 38, A:3174

&quote;The South's fight for race purity,&quote; by R.W. Wooley, Pearson's Magazine

210 Pearson's Magazine surprise. In fact, several told me that in their practice the percentage would run as high as seventy-five. But none had any figures, gathered either in hospitals or privately, with which to back up their estimates. They simply emphasized their belief that miscegenation was to blame for decidedly the major portion of the trouble. Upon my return from the South I called on Dr. Howard A. Kelly, professor of gynecology at Johns Hopkins University, to get the "65 per cent." verified. He assured me that he had never given out any such figures and was not aware that any of his assistants had. Therefore, I cannot offer them as authentic, though at least two Johns Hopkins physicians have since assured me that they are approximately correct. In discussing the health conditions of the negro before the Southern Medical Association at Atlanta in November, 1908, Dr. Seale Harris, of Mobile, a member of the faculty of the University of Alabama, stated that "not enough has been said regarding the physical deterioration which is certainly taking place in that race. It is undeniably true that tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid fever, small-pox and other contagious diseases are much more prevalent among the negroes than among the whites. That these diseases are often transmitted to the whites by the negroes is well known to all physicians." In a paper read several years ago before the American Medical Association Dr. Harris dealt with the social diseases as predisposing causes of tuberculosis. He said he was strongly inclined to the opinion that the malady caused by the coccus of Neisser prepared the soil for the bacilli of consumption and therefore was the indirect cause of much tuberculosis peritonitis. Dr. William Osler says: "Tuberculosis peritonitis in America is a more common disease in the negro than in the white race, and recently collected statistics show that females predominate." Dr. Harris told me a few weeks ago, in Mobile, that he believed the percentage of member of the colored race afflicted with social diseases to be greater than ever. He estimated that in his hospital work fully 90 per cent. of the women over sixteen years of age gave histories of one of these troubles and among the men they were practically universal. This discloses a degree of licentiousness which is shocking to the reader who knows not the unmoral character of the negro and the mulatto. The statement of Dr. Harris was substantially repeated by Dr. Ernest S. Lewis, who has been for thirty years in charge of the gynecological work at the Charity Hospital in New Orleans, by Dr. F. C. Baldredge, of Huntsville, Ala., by Dr. F. C. Williams, secretary of the South Carolina Board of Health, and by Dr. W. S. Rankin, and Dr. R. H. Lewis, of Raleigh, present and former secretaries respectively of the North Carolina Board of Health. It is well to repeat that these eminent physicians spoke only from personal experience. I talked with other reputable doctors who made even more startling statements. The Increasing Death-rate "It is a fact," says Dr. Seale-Harris," that before the war that negro death-rate for the South was less than that for the whites. As an illustration: in Charleston, South Carolina, from 1822 to the beginning of the war the average white-death-rate was 25.98 per thousand; for the blacks,24.05 per thousand. The same was true for all other Southern cities whose statistics I have seen. I have seen no statistics for the rural districts before the war, but while no doubt lower than the city death rates, the proportion as to the races was about the same. Now let us compare these statistics with those after the war, and we find in the city of Charleston, from '65 to 1894, the average annual mortality for the whites was 26.77 per thousand; for blacks 43.29 per thousand." In his annual report for the year 1908 Dr. W. C. Woodward, Health Officer of the District of Columbia, says: "The influence of the colored population of the District on its general death-rate is about as bad as usual. The colored population in 1907 made up 29.2 per cent. of the population, but contributed 42.79 per cent of all the deaths. The colored death-rate was 28.22; the white was 15.55." The death-rates in other leading cities of the South for the same year were: Mobile - white 19.0, colored 31.1; New Orleans - white 20.1, colored 34.4; Louisville - white 15.6, colored 28.3; Savannah - white 17.9, colored 30.0; Baltimore - white 17.7, colored 31.8; Wilmington, N.C. - white 19.8, colored 32.6. In spite of education, in spite of the vigilance of health officers, the negro is dying out. While the birth-rate is decreasing, the death-rate is steadily increasing. Scrofula and social diseases are so depleting his vitality that

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