Breathing race into the machine : the surprising career of the spirometer from plantation to genetics / Lundy Braun.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Braun, Lundy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Spirometry--History.

Spirometry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis, Minnesota : University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In the antebellum South, plantation physicians used a new medical device-the spirometer-to show that lung volume and therefore vital capacity were supposedly less in black slaves than in white citizens. At the end of the Civil War, a large study of racial difference employing the spirometer appeared to confirm the finding, which was then applied to argue that slaves were unfit for freedom. What is astonishing is that this example of racial thinking is anything but a historical relic. In Breathing Race into the Machine, science studies scholar Lundy Braun traces the lit

Contents:

"Inventing" the spirometer: working class bodies in Victorian England

Black lungs and white lungs: the science of white supremacy in the nineteenth century United States

Filling the lungs with air: the rise of physical culture in America

Progress and race: vitality in turn of the century Britain

Globalizing spirometry: the "racial factor" in scientific medicine

Adjudicating disability in the industrial worker

Diagnosing silicosis: physiological testing in South African gold mines.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4529-4918-2

1-4529-4099-1

OCLC:

871257790