The New York Academy of Medicine's Section on the History of Medicine and Public Health announces a four-part mini-series on the history of race, ethnicity and health. Our speakers will explore the contrasts in health conditions across racial and ethic lines--past and present, as well as the experience of immigrant medical professionals, and the geopolitics of race, health and empire.

All Lectures begin at 6 PM; Reception at 5:30 PM.
New York Academy of Medicine 1216 Fifth Avenue, New York

Samuel Roberts will open the series on Thursday, February 10.

"Mediating Infection and Politics: Ideas of Hereditary Predisposition and Poverty in the Early U.S. Anti-Tuberculosis Movement"
The theory of "house infection" -- an axiom of aggressive anti-tuberculosis efforts then as now -- gained acceptance only as the notion of hereditary predisposition became firmly affixed in Americans' minds. The doctrine that the tubercle bacillus was most transmissible in enclosed space empowered the early anti-tuberculosis movement, but promoted a vision of urban space and infection in which hereditary predisposition played a much larger part than scientific evidence would suggest.

Samuel Roberts is Assistant Professor of History in the Columbia University Department of History, and Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health. His research focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century science and racial thought; United States public health history; history of African-American labor and class formation; and race and progressive politics in the United States. Roberts received his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1995 and his Ph.D. from Princeton in 2001. He has published several books reviews and essays, and is completing his first book, Infectious Fear: African Americans, Tuberculosis, and Public Health in the Early Twentieth Century.

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Thursday, March 17
The Iago Galdston Memorial Lecture
Judy Tzu Chun Wu, Ohio State University
"Modernizing Chinatown: Race, Reproduction, and Medical Tourism"
This talk discusses the establishment of the first western medical clinic in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1922, and features the life-story of Margaret Chung, the first Chinese-American female to become a physician.

Tuesday, April 12
Paul Sutter, University of Georgia
"Pulling the Teeth of the Tropics: Disease, Race, and Nature during the American Construction of the Panama Canal"
American efforts to reduce disease during the construction of the Panama Canal demonstrate how key components of racial and environmental thinking intersected in American sanitary policy.

Thursday, April 21
The John K. Lattimer Lecture
Howard Markel, University of Michigan
"When Germs Travel: Epidemics and Immigrants in the 20th Century"
The series concludes with an examination of America's current attempts to isolate ourselves from "immigrant microbes," and a suggestion for a globally-funded public health program that could stop the spread of epidemics, help eradicate certain diseases, and protect us all.

These events are free and open to the public, and are underwritten by the New York Council for the Humanities. CME credit is available. For more information about NYAM programs in the history of medicine, visit our website at http://www.nyam.org/initiatives/im-histe.shtml, write history@nyam.org or call Christian Warren at the telephone number provided below.

The Academy's Rare Book Room was recently featured in the New York Times. To read a press release, with a link to the article, visit http://www.nyam.org/news/2258.html .

Historical programs at NYAM are supported by the Friends of the Rare Book Room. Please join the Friends! Download a membership form at http://www.nyam.org/initiatives/docs/FRBR_Renewal.pdf .