Harriet A. Washington’s goliath of a book contains research, oral histories, collective memories, history, and legislation regarding medical exploitation on plantations, medical experimentation on enslaved Africans and freedmen, antebellum clinics, anatomical dissection and public display, the Tuskegee experiments, eugenics, radiation experiments, research on Black prisoners, research on Black children, genetics, the imposed criminality of illness, surgical technology, and bioterrorism. I could go on and on about all that I learned from this text, but I'll put it simply: This book reveals many of the origins and contexts surrounding racist stereotypes and ideologies that we see today.

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