The Worker's Cauldron

The Night Doctors

David Roddy, Monique Calhoun & Mercedas Castillo

Sometimes monsters take on the most unlikely form. Today we talk about the night doctor, a shadowy medical menace that appears in Black folklore at the beginning of the 20th century. Fear of the night doctor reflected a very real history of racist medical abuse in the United States.

 CONTENT WARNING: this episode contains discussions about dissections and unethical medical experiments that some may find disturbing.


References:

Night Riders in Black Folk History
By Gladys-Marie Fry


Medical Apartheid
By Harriet A. Washington


Bodies in the Basement: The Forgotten Stolen Bones of America's Medical Schools
By Dolly Stolze


Night Doctors
By Colin Dickey


Fear Of The Dark: The Night Doctors In Folk Belief And Historical Reality
By Mark Laskey



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