Night Doctors

Night Doctors, also known as night riders, night witches, Ku Klux doctors, and student doctors are bogeymen of African American folklore who emerged from the realities of grave-robbing, medical experimentation, and intimidation rumors spread by southern whites to prevent workers from leaving for the north.

Grave-robbers

African Americans were the main source of cadavers in from the late 18th century through the end of the civil war^[1]. Many municipalities and states had laws against grave-robbing, so it was only practiced on those who were unprotected by the law.

This law was flouted by medical schools who often bragged about the ease in obtaining cadavers from the slave and free black population, as shown in this 1831 advertisement for South Carolina Medical College:

““Some advantages of a peculiar character are connected with this institution, which it may be proper to point out. No place in the United States offers as great opportunities for the acquisition of anatomical knowledge. Subjects being obtained from the colored population in sufficient numbers for every purpose, and proper dissection carried out without offending any individuals in the community””

Excavations at the Medical College of Georgia in 1989 brought up more than 9,000 bones mainly from working class individuals. Approximately 80% of those were from African Americans.^[2]. In addition to being the majority of cadavers, many Southern teaching hospitals would only perform new surgical techniques and demonstrations on African-American patients.^[3]

The Night Rider

“Don’t you know white men taught them all that about ghosts? That was a way of keeping them down, keeping them under control.“^[4]

There is a long history of the white man using the supernatural to intimidate African-Americans. During slavery times, the master would ride around dressed like a ghost. Later there were patrols called patterollers. After the civil war, the Ku Klux Klan continued the ‘night rider’ tradition, and it was finally taken up by the night doctors.

Between the civil war and the 1930s, labor agents were sent by northern employers to recruit African Americans from the south. In addition to restrictive laws, southern employers used rumor to intimidate the workforce into staying in the south. One of the most popular rumors concerned doctors who would roam the northern streets at night and kill African Americans to use for dissections. Sometimes southern whites would also dress in white gowns to spread the fear.

Needle Men and the Black Bottle Men

In New Orleans there is an interesting variation on the night doctors called the needle men. Thought to be medical students from Charity Hospital (now the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans), the needle men poke an unsuspecting individual in the arm, and they would die. Several explanations have been found, from an explanation for epilepsy to a real needle man in 1924 who would poke women with a bayonet.

'I sure don't go out much at this time of year. You takes a chance just walkin' on the streets. Them Needle Mens is everywhere. They always comes 'round in the fall, and they's 'round to about March. You see, them Needle Mens is medical students from the Charity Hospital tryin' to git your body to work on. That's 'cause stiffs is very scarce at this time of the year.^[5]

Students at Charity Hospital were also referred to as black bottle men. The black bottle would be a poison given upon entrance to Charity Hospital, and the resulting death would free the body to be used for dissection. It is now thought that the black bottle refers to cascara (Rhamnus purshiana) mixed with milk of magnesia, a dieretic which was commonly given to admitted patients.^[6]

Modern incarnations

In 1979, when 25 African-American young men and boys disappeared in Georgia, the night doctors were blamed. In this incarnation, the night doctor would sell the internal organs for aphrodisiacs.^[7]

The discovery of the Tuskegee study in which doctors withheld treatment from 399 African-American men also revived the tale of the night doctors.

References

1. ^ Bankole, Katherine Kemi. Slavery and medicine: enslavement and medical practices in antebellum Louisiana. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1998.
2. ^ Halperin, Edward C. The Poor, the Black, and the Marginalized as Sources of Cadavers in United States Anatomical Education. Clinical Anatomy, 20(5), p 489-495
3. ^ Doty, Leilani. "Renewing Trust in Regular(Allopathic) Medicine and Research" SELAM International Newsletter. 9(1), 2007.
4. ^ Fry, Gladys-Marie. Night Riders In Black Folk History. University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1975.
5. ^ Lyle Saxon, Edward Dreyer, Robert Tallant, Gumbo Ya-Ya, Houghton-Mifflan: Boston, 1945
6. ^ Lyle Saxon, Edward Dreyer, Robert Tallant, Gumbo Ya-Ya, Houghton-Mifflan: Boston, 1945
7. ^ http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/1986/october/Sa11505.htm

External links

• Full text of Gumbo Yaya [1]