Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-157) and index.

Introduction. American gynecology and black lives -- The birth of American gynecology -- Black women's experiences in slavery and medicine -- Contested relations: slavery, sex, and medicine -- Irish immigrant women and American gynecology -- Historical black superbodies and the medical gaze -- Afterword.

The accomplishments of pioneering American doctors such as John Peter Mettauer, James Marion Sims, and Nathan Bozeman are well documented. It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental cesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. "Medical Bondage" breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation. Even as they were advancing, these doctors were legitimizing groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. "Medical Bondage" moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. -- From publisher's description.