The infamous Night Doctors of the 19th century (and late 18th century) haunted the lives of African Americans, snatching innocent minds and bodies away from their rightful owners. Night Doctors are widely known for their history in body-snatching, which was simply the act of kidnapping and killing innocent blacks (mostly blacks) off the streets for the use of medical experimentation. For dozens of years, scientists, and even just the modern, everyday population have debated on the subject of whether the experiments done by Night Doctors, though horrific and unjust, had made a big or important enough impact on the movement of medical research to somewhat justify their actions.
Treatment from the notorious Night Doctors ruined and wounded more …show more content…
In any experiment, the conductor needs to perform more of the same experiment in order to boost the validity of the results. In terms of night doctors, they felt there were not enough extra people to experiment on and, therefore, began their “practice” of stealing them off the street. Another popularly brought up opinion is that, if advertised properly, experiments could have gone off without a hitch since many citizens are willing to help for the greater good. Say one experiment required blood samples or even injections of something into the blood, many people argued that if enough newspapers were published with an advertisement saying “Come help us (doctors) find a cure to ______”, plenty of volunteers would’ve seen their way to assist the doctors. Humans have the kindest hearts on Earth and we’ve shown what we can do with such a kind heart so there’s no reason (other than paranoia) that night doctors should’ve gone against common sense and taken the medical matters into their own hands by snatching innocent people from their friends and families for …show more content…
In Bonnie Stanfill’s Night Doctors, she explains the history of grave robbing: “During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, grave robbing was a serious problem. This was due to the need for education in the field of anatomical dissection. There were constant shortages in available bodies so grave robbers started filling the demand. Due to the Christian belief that there would be a physical ‘resurrection’ of the deceased body there was no tolerance for this by the wealthy white population who began to protect their graves with iron bars and guards. Therefore, the majority of the bodies were those of the disenfranchised and poor: inmates and African Americans.” This quote explains the problem of grave robbing, that of the stealing issues, being a result of lack in bodies to analyze. Due to religious beliefs of possible resurrection, rich whites actually worked harder to protect the graves of their loved ones so they couldn’t get experimented on. This is the reason blacks were usually the victims of grave robbers and why it’s such a large negative in black history over white. In Dawn Danella’s Night Doctors: Exhuming The Truth, she explains the backstory and importance of Night Doctors/grave robbers by stating, ““The following statement concerning night doctors appears in an 1896 issue of the Journal of American Folklore: On
Treatment from the notorious Night Doctors ruined and wounded more …show more content…
In any experiment, the conductor needs to perform more of the same experiment in order to boost the validity of the results. In terms of night doctors, they felt there were not enough extra people to experiment on and, therefore, began their “practice” of stealing them off the street. Another popularly brought up opinion is that, if advertised properly, experiments could have gone off without a hitch since many citizens are willing to help for the greater good. Say one experiment required blood samples or even injections of something into the blood, many people argued that if enough newspapers were published with an advertisement saying “Come help us (doctors) find a cure to ______”, plenty of volunteers would’ve seen their way to assist the doctors. Humans have the kindest hearts on Earth and we’ve shown what we can do with such a kind heart so there’s no reason (other than paranoia) that night doctors should’ve gone against common sense and taken the medical matters into their own hands by snatching innocent people from their friends and families for …show more content…
In Bonnie Stanfill’s Night Doctors, she explains the history of grave robbing: “During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, grave robbing was a serious problem. This was due to the need for education in the field of anatomical dissection. There were constant shortages in available bodies so grave robbers started filling the demand. Due to the Christian belief that there would be a physical ‘resurrection’ of the deceased body there was no tolerance for this by the wealthy white population who began to protect their graves with iron bars and guards. Therefore, the majority of the bodies were those of the disenfranchised and poor: inmates and African Americans.” This quote explains the problem of grave robbing, that of the stealing issues, being a result of lack in bodies to analyze. Due to religious beliefs of possible resurrection, rich whites actually worked harder to protect the graves of their loved ones so they couldn’t get experimented on. This is the reason blacks were usually the victims of grave robbers and why it’s such a large negative in black history over white. In Dawn Danella’s Night Doctors: Exhuming The Truth, she explains the backstory and importance of Night Doctors/grave robbers by stating, ““The following statement concerning night doctors appears in an 1896 issue of the Journal of American Folklore: On