"Medical science in antebellum America was organized around a paradox: it presumed African Americans to be less than human yet still human enough to be viable as experimental subjects, as cadavers, and for use in the training of medical students. By taking a hard look at the racial ideas of both northern and southern medical schools, Christopher D.E. Willoughby reveals that racist ideas were not external to the medical profession but fundamental to medical knowledge"-- Provided by publisher.

Racial science and medical schools in early America -- The clinical-racial gaze -- Training on Black people's bodies -- Mastering anatomy -- Skull collecting, medical museums, and the international dimensions of racial science -- Jeffries Wyman, travel, and the rise of a racial anatomist -- Race, empire, and environmental medicine -- The afterlives of slavery and racial science in U.S. medical education.