Unmentionable madness gender, disability, and shame in the malaria treatment of neurosyphilis Christin L. Hancock

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hancock, Christin Lee, 1974- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

People with disabilities--Social conditions.

People with disabilities.

Human experimentation in medicine.

People with disabilities--Abuse of.

Discrimination against people with disabilities.

Neurosyphilis--Treatment.

Neurosyphilis.

Social conditions.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Other Title:

Path to Open

Place of Publication:

Urbana University of Illinois Press 2025

Summary:

"In 1930, neurosyphilis struck an unsuspecting Mabel Smith. Doctors at the Central State Hospital for the Insane in Indianapolis turned to malaria therapy--a radical treatment that relied on the belief that infection with malaria might save Smith's life by attacking the bacterium that causes syphilis. Christin L. Hancock looks through the lens of feminist disability to examine the popular but ethically suspect treatment and its consequences. As Hancock shows, the treatment's purported success rate relied on the disabled minds and bodies of people incarcerated in mental hospitals. The backgrounds and identities of these patients reflected and perpetuated attitudes around poverty, gender, race, and disability while betraying authorities' desire to protect the public from women and men perceived as abnormal, sexually tainted, and unworthy of community life. Paying special attention to the patients' voices and experiences, Unmentionable Madness offers a disability history that confronts the ethics of experimentation"-- Provided by publisher

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Online resource (Online resource; title from pdf information screen (JSTOR, viewed August 28, 2025)

ISBN:

9780252047404

0252047400

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.