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In the antebellum South, plantation physsicians used a new medical device - the spirometer - to show that lung volume and therefore vital capacity were supposedly less in black slaves than in white citizens. At the end of the Civil War, a large study of racial difference employing the spirometer appeared to confirm the finding, which was then applied to argue that slaves were unlit for freedom. What is astonishing is that this example of racial thinking is anything but a historical relic. In Breathing Race into the Machine, science studies scholar Lundy Braun traces the little-known history of the spirometer to reveal the social and scientific processes by which medical instruments have worked to naturalize racial and ethnic differences, from Victorian Britain to today. Routinely a factor in clinical diagnosis, preemployment physicals, and disability estimates, spirometers are often "race corrected," typically reducing normal values for African Americans by 15 percent. An unsettling account of the pernicious effects of racial thinking that divides people along genetic lines, Breathing Race into the Machine helps us understand how race enters into science and shapes medical research and practice. -- from dust jacket

Spirometry --- Lungs --- Black people --- Racism in medicine --- Lung --- Blacks --- Whites --- Racism --- Pneumoconiosis --- History, 19th Century --- History, 20th Century --- 20th Cent. History (Medicine) --- 20th Cent. History of Medicine --- 20th Cent. Medicine --- Historical Events, 20th Century --- History of Medicine, 20th Cent. --- History, Twentieth Century --- Medical History, 20th Cent. --- Medicine, 20th Cent. --- 20th Century History --- 20th Cent. Histories (Medicine) --- 20th Century Histories --- Cent. Histories, 20th (Medicine) --- Cent. History, 20th (Medicine) --- Century Histories, 20th --- Century Histories, Twentieth --- Century History, 20th --- Century History, Twentieth --- Histories, 20th Cent. (Medicine) --- Histories, 20th Century --- Histories, Twentieth Century --- History, 20th Cent. (Medicine) --- Twentieth Century Histories --- Twentieth Century History --- 19th Cent. History (Medicine) --- 19th Cent. History of Medicine --- 19th Cent. Medicine --- Historical Events, 19th Century --- History of Medicine, 19th Cent. --- History, Nineteenth Century --- Medical History, 19th Cent. --- Medicine, 19th Cent. --- 19th Century History --- 19th Cent. Histories (Medicine) --- 19th Century Histories --- Cent. Histories, 19th (Medicine) --- Cent. History, 19th (Medicine) --- Century Histories, 19th --- Century Histories, Nineteenth --- Century History, 19th --- Century History, Nineteenth --- Histories, 19th Cent. (Medicine) --- Histories, 19th Century --- Histories, Nineteenth Century --- History, 19th Cent. (Medicine) --- Nineteenth Century Histories --- Nineteenth Century History --- Caucasian Race --- Caucasoid Race --- Caucasian Races --- Caucasoid Races --- Race, Caucasian --- Race, Caucasoid --- Races, Caucasian --- Races, Caucasoid --- White --- Negro --- Negroid Race --- Negroes --- Negroid Races --- Race, Negroid --- Races, Negroid --- History --- Dust diseases --- Social aspects --- Diseases --- history --- instrumentation --- physiology --- etiology --- Medical racism --- Medicine --- Black persons --- Ethnology --- Pneometry --- Pulmonary function tests --- European Continental Ancestry Group --- White Person --- People, White --- Person, White --- White Peoples --- White Persons --- African Continental Ancestry Group --- Black Person --- Black Peoples --- Black Persons --- People, Black --- Person, Black --- Persons, Black --- Cardiopulmonary system --- Chest --- Respiratory organs