Black Nurses' Erased Role in Tuberculosis Cure Development

Key Quotes

"So tuberculosis was one of the most feared diseases it kind of if you can imagine lived in everybody's mind it was a kind of thing that walked with people slept with people it was always there it was a disease that had plagued you know humankind they've traced it back to homo erectus man they found the skeleton of a homo erectus boy who has a lesion of tuberculosis on his brain so we're talking about 500 000 years that this disease has been plaguing humanity people were terrified of catching tuberculosis for two reasons number one there was no cure number two the disease was stigmatizing and so catching tuberculosis meant that you would be ostracized and you would be quarantined or you would you would eventually die"

Maria Smilios explains that tuberculosis was a pervasive and terrifying disease for millennia, causing not only physical suffering but also social isolation. The fear stemmed from its incurability and the stigma attached, which led to ostracization and quarantine for those afflicted.

"The commissioner of health at the time wanted to find a place to put the quote immoral uncouth un american consumptives and so he turned his eyes towards staten island he said let's build this hospital we can quarantine them there it was on the highest hilltop between maine and virginia 400 feet above sea level at the mouth of the atlantic ocean so you got that breeze coming up and it also was close enough to the city where people could go and visit the other thing was it was a municipal hospital so they had to treat people and new york city at the time they had 10 000 annually dying from tuberculosis and thousands of others sickened from it"

Smilios details the initial rationale for establishing Sea View Hospital on Staten Island, highlighting the commissioner of health's desire to isolate individuals deemed "immoral consumptives." The location was chosen for its elevation and proximity to the city, while also serving the municipal duty to treat the large number of tuberculosis sufferers in New York City.

"The city puts out a call for black nurses because at the time they were honor or underemployed black nurses could only work in black hospitals there were only 260 in america at the time versus 6 000 white hospitals that preferred to remain understaffed rather than hire black nurses so you have all these black nurses down in the jim crow south that are very qualified but can't find jobs the city knows this so they put out this call and couch it as a rare opportunity to work at one of the city's municipal hospitals sea view hospital"

Smilios describes how the city, facing a shortage of nurses, actively recruited Black nurses from the segregated South. This recruitment was framed as a unique career opportunity, capitalizing on the fact that qualified Black nurses were largely underemployed and restricted to Black-only hospitals.

"At a meeting with 300 city officials nurse officials and nurses the president of hospitals gave a talk and one young black nurse stood up and said mr president why do you send black nurses to seaview and he said quote we send black nurses to seaview because in 20 years we won't have a colored problem in america because they'll all be dead from tuberculosis end quote this is an important to put in context because the nurses knew why they were sent there and yet they showed up every day"

Smilios recounts a stark exchange where the president of hospitals explicitly stated the discriminatory reason for assigning Black nurses to Sea View: the expectation that they would succumb to tuberculosis. This context underscores the nurses' resilience and dedication, as they continued their work despite knowing the dangerous and prejudiced circumstances.

"The nurses start doing this and they give them the pill their task to distribute the medication dr robichek was an extremely moral guy and i just want to make this very clear anybody he tested the drug on he got their consent robichek does his rounds and three times a day the nurses are charting right so these nurses are the ones doing the sort of unglamorous but essential work of observing and documenting changes in these patients that they know so well"

Smilios emphasizes the critical role of the nurses in the clinical trials for isoniazid, the tuberculosis drug. The nurses were responsible for distributing medication and meticulously observing and documenting patient responses, both physical and emotional, which was essential for understanding the drug's effects and side effects.

"What happens is they bypass the black nurses and they tell this extraordinary story and completely erased them from history it's as like they never existed i looked at hundreds of newspaper articles not a single one mentioned the black nurses"

Smilios points out the historical erasure of the Black nurses' contributions to the discovery of the tuberculosis cure. Despite their frontline involvement in the trials and their deep understanding of the patients, Smilios notes that media coverage of the breakthrough completely omitted their involvement, effectively rendering them invisible in historical accounts.