Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I African beginnings
- Part II Immunities: epidemiology and the slave trade
- Part III Susceptibilitie
- Introduction to Part III
- 5 “Negro diseases” an introductory glimpse
- 6 Nutrients and nutriments
- 7 The children
- 8 Aliments and ailments
- 9 Selection for infection
- 10 Cholera and race
- Part IV Antebellum medicine
- Part V Sequelae and legacy
- Notes
- Bibliographic essay
- Index
8 - Aliments and ailments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I African beginnings
- Part II Immunities: epidemiology and the slave trade
- Part III Susceptibilitie
- Introduction to Part III
- 5 “Negro diseases” an introductory glimpse
- 6 Nutrients and nutriments
- 7 The children
- 8 Aliments and ailments
- 9 Selection for infection
- 10 Cholera and race
- Part IV Antebellum medicine
- Part V Sequelae and legacy
- Notes
- Bibliographic essay
- Index
Summary
Corn, abounding as it does in oily matter is also a heat-producing agent, acting precisely like fat meat; and in addition to this its other elements render it a valuable muscle producing food. How fortunate that pork and corn, the most valuable of all articles of diet for negroes, may be readily produced throughout the whole region where slaves are worked.
John S. Wilson (1859)I am persuaded that they [planters and overseers] can do much to promote the health of their negroes by timely care and attention, and thus avoid, in some measure, what I have often heard them say gives them the greatest trouble in the management of their plantations, namely, the sickness amongst the negroes, (italics his)
Ralph Butterfield (1858)Descriptions of runaway slaves are replete with references to crooked or bandy legs, knocked-knees, stooped shoulders, jaundiced complexions, splotchy skin, inflamed and watery eyes, partial blindness, speech impediments, and rotten, missing, or buck teeth. Moreover, the records of over 100 estates ranging from Louisiana to South Carolina and from Florida to Arkansas suggest that the afflictions of the runaways were hardly atypical, for these data also point to a high incidence of blindness, lameness, deformed bones, skin lesions, and dental problems.
All of this is indicative of primary nutritional problems among the bondsmen. Of course nonnutritional problems were doubtless at the root of some of these difficulties. Nonethless, the frequently mentioned bone maladies point to an absence of sufficient calcium, ascorbic acid, magnesium, and/or vitamin D in the diet, while the skin, teeth, and eye complaints suggest a multiple deficiency including vitamins A, C and the B complex-in every case vitamins and minerals in which the slave diet was most likely to have been deficient.
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- Another Dimension to the Black DiasporaDiet, Disease and Racism, pp. 117 - 133Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1981