Abstract
The economic history of antebellum southern slavery has been and is the subject of ongoing debates among scholars. The literature includes assessments about the efficiency of slavery as well as about the adequacy of slave living standards and diets. Yet this literature under appreciates the important biologic and historical role that parasitic diseases played in the history of slavery. Recognizing the role of parasitic diseases calls into question some prevailing interpretations of slavery. Lacking direct evidence on slave diets, scholars turned to anthropometric evidence as proxies for the living standards of slaves, leading to the prevailing view that adult slaves were given adequate sustenance, but slave infants and children were severely malnourished. We argue it was not slave diets, but the combination of the plantation system and diseases that caused abnormally small slave children. The diseases that concern us, primarily hookworm and malaria, affected slaves ('blacks') and free labor ('whites') differently. Many slaves were concentrated on large plantations with infants and younger children crowded into 'nurseries.' This system allowed the maintenance and spread of diseases that adversely affected younger slaves. Southern white children however were less likely to be raised in conditions so conductive to parasitic diseases. The disease ecology of the antebellum South has implications for the prevailing view that slavery was more efficient than free labor. Biologic evidence indicates that people of tropical West African ancestry are more resilient to the effects of hookworm and malaria than European descendents. Thus when whites did contract these diseases, they were more afflicted than blacks. When slaves entered the adult work force they were taken from disease breeding grounds (slave nurseries) and sent into relatively (for blacks) healthy fields, while whites that went into the fields found a disease environment that was typically worse than that of their childhood. If black adults were more productive than were white adults because of a greater resilience to parasitic diseases, then part of any measured difference in productivity between slave and free farms should be attributed to the disease resistance of African descendents, rather than to any inherent efficiencies of slavery.
Similar content being viewed by others
References cited
Adams, Elizabeth J., Lani S. Stephenson, Michael C. Latham, Stephen N. Kinoti, & Anne Pertet. 1991. Albendazole treatment improves growth and physical activity of Kenyan school children with hookworm, t. trichiura and a. lumbricoides infections. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 53:A-104, P-30 (Abs.).
Allison, A.C. 1961. Genetic factors in resistance to malaria. Annals of the New York Academy of Science 91:710–729.
Anderson, Roy M. & Robert M. May. 1991. Infectious diseases of humans. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Atack, Jeremy & Peter Passell. 1994. A new economic view of American history, (2nd ed.), W.W. Norton and Company, New York, NY.
Behnke, J.M. 1991. Immunology. Pp. 93–155 in H.M. Gilles & P.A.J. Ball (eds.) Hookworm Infections, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Berkowitz, Gertrud S. & Emile Papiernik. 1993. Epidemiology of preterm birth. Epidemiologic Reviews 15:414–443.
Blanton, Wyndham B. 1930. Epidemic diseases. Pp. 32–77 in Wyndham B. Blanton (ed.) Medicine in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, William Byrd Press, Richmond, VA.
Blanton, Wyndham B. 1957. Epidemics, real and imaginary, and other factors influencing seventeenth century Virginia' population. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 31:454–462.
Brabin, B.J. 1983. An analysis of malaria in pregnancy in Africa. Bulletin World Health Organization 61:1005–1016.
Brabin, B.J. 1991. The risks and severity of malaria in pregnantwomen. Applied Field Research in Malaria Reports No. 1 TDR (Training in Tropical Disease) UNDP/World Bank, World Health Organization.
Breeden, James O. 1988. Pp. 1–28 in Todd L. Savitt & James Harvey Young (eds.). Disease as a factor in southern distinctiveness. Disease and Distinctiveness in the American South, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.
Brinkley, Garland Lee. 1997. The decline in southern agricultural output, 1860–1880. Journal of Economic History 57:116–133.
Bruce-Chwatt, Leonard Jan. 1980. Essential malariology. William Heinemann Medical Books, London.
Bruce-Chwatt, Leonard Jan & Julian de Zulueta. 1980. The rise and fall of malaria in Europe: a historicoepidemiological study. Oxford University Press, London.
Cairnes, Jonathan Elliot. 1862 [1962]. The slave power: its character, career, and probable designs. Carleton Press, New York, NY.
Cates, Gerald L. 1980. “The seasoning”: disease and death among the first colonists of Georgia. Georgia Historical Quarterly 64:146–158.
Chandler, Asa C. 1929. Hookworm disease: its distribution, biology, epidemiology, pathology, diagnosis, treatment and control. The Macmillan Company, New York, NY.
Childs, St. Julien Ravenal. 1940. Malaria and colonialization in the Carolina low country. The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, MD.
Coelho, Philip R.P. & Robert A. McGuire. 1997. African and European bound labor in the British new world: the biological consequences of economic choices. Journal of Economic History 57:83–115.
Coelho, Philip R.P. & James F. Shepherd. 1979. The impact of regional differences in prices andwages on economic growth: the United States in 1890. Journal of Economic History 39:69–85.
Conrad, Alfred & John Meyer. 1958. The economics of slavery in the antebellum south. Journal of Political Economy 66:95–130.
Crompton, D.W.T. & Lani. S. Stephenson. 1990. Hookworm infection, nutritional status and productivity. Pp. 231–264 in Gerhard A. Schad & K.S. Warren (eds.) Hookworm Disease: Current Status and New Directions. Taylor and Francis, London.
Cronin, Helena. 1991. The ant and the peacock. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Crosby, Alfred W. 1972. The Columbian exchange. Greenwood Press, Westport, CN.
Crosby, Alfred W. 1986. Ecological imperialism. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Crutcher, James M. & Stephen L. Hoffman. 1996. Malaria. Chapter 83 in Samuel Baron (ed.) Medical Microbiology, (4th ed.), University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Galveston, TX.
Curtin, Philip D. 1968. Epidemiology and the slave trade. Political Science Quarterly 83:190–216.
Curtin, Philip D. 1989. Death by migration. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Das, J.P. & Emma Pivato. 1976. Malnutrition and cognitive functioning. International Review of Research in Mental Retardation 8:195–223.
Das, J.P. & Priyani Soysa. 1978. Late effects of malnutrition on cognitive competence. International Journal of Psychology 13:295–303.
David, Paul A., Herbert G. Gutman, Richard Sutch, Peter Temin, & Gavin Wright (eds.) 1976. Reckoning with slavery, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
David, Paul & Peter Temin. 1974. Slavery: the progressive institution. Journal of Economic History 34:739–783.
David, Paul & Peter Temin. 1975. Capitalist masters, bourgeois slaves. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5:445–457.
David, Paul & Peter Temin. 1979. Explaining the relative efficiency of slave agriculture in the antebellum south: comment. American Economic Review 69:213–216.
Davies, K.G. 1975. The living and the dead: white mortality in West Africa, 1684–1732. Pp. 83–98 in Stanley L. Engerman & Eugene D. Genovese (eds.) Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitative Studies, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Dock, George & Charles C. Bass. 1910. Hookworm disease. C.V. Mosby Company, St. Louis, MO.
Drake, Daniel. 1850 [1964]. Malaria in the interior valley of North America. University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL.
Dunn, Frederick L. 1993. Malaria. Pp. 855–862 in Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.) The CambridgeWorld History of Human Disease, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
DuPont, Herbert L. 1993. Diarrheal diseases (acute). Pp. 676–680 in Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.) The CambridgeWorld History of Human Diseases, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Easterlin, Richard A. 1961. Regional income trends, 1840–1950. Pp. 525–547 in Seymour E. Harris (ed.) American Economic History, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Eltis, David. 1982. Nutritional trends in Africa and the Americas: heights of Africans, 1819–1839. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12:453–475.
Eltis, David. 1984. Mortality and voyage length in the middle passage: new evidence from the nineteenth century. Journal of Economic History 44:301–308.
Eltis, David. 1987. Economic growth and the ending of the transatlantic slave trade. Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Eltis, David. 1989. Fluctuations in mortality in the last half century of the transatlantic slave trade. Social Science History 13:315–340.
Eltis, David. 1990. Welfare trends among the Yoruba in the early nineteenth century: the anthropometric evidence. Journal of Economic History 50:521–540.
Engerman, Stanley L. 1976. The height of US slaves. Local Population Studies 16:45–50.
Ettling, John. 1981. The germ of laziness: Rockefeller philanthrophy and public health in the new south. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Ettling, John. 1993. Hookworm disease. Pp. 784–788 in Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.) The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Field, Elizabeth. 1988. The relative efficiency of slavery revisited: a translong production function approach. American Economic Review 78:543–549.
Field-Hendrey, Elizabeth. 1995. Application of a stochastic production frontier to slave agriculture: an extension. Applied Economics 27:363–377.
Findlay, G.M. 1941. The first recognized epidemic of yellow fever. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 35:143–54.
Fleming, A.F. 1989. Anemia in pregnancy in the tropics. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 83:441–48.
Fogel, Robert William. 1986. Nutrition and the decline in mortality since 1700: some preliminary findings. Pp. 439–555 in Stanley L. Engerman & Robert E. Gallman (eds.) Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Fogel, Robert William. 1989. Without consent or contract: the rise and fall of American Slavery, 1 Vol., W.W. Norton, New York, NY.
Fogel, Robert William & Stanley L. Engerman. 1971. The relative efficiency of slavery: a comparison of northern and southern agriculture in 1860. Explorations in Economic History 8:353–367.
Fogel, Robert William & Stanley L. Engerman. 1974a. Time on the cross: the economics of American negro slavery. Little, Brown, Boston, MA.
Fogel, Robert William & Stanley L. Engerman. 1974b. Time on the cross ii: evidence and methods. Little, Brown, Boston, MA.
Fogel, Robert William & Stanley L. Engerman. 1977. Explaining the relative efficiency of slave agriculture in the antebellum south. American Economic Review 67:275–296.
Fogel, Robert William & Stanley L. Engerman. 1979. Recent findings in the study of slave demography and family structure. Sociology and Social Research 63:566–589.
Fogel, RobertWilliam & Stanley L. Engerman. 1980. Explaining the relative efficiency of slave agriculture in the antebellum south: reply. American Economic Review 70:672–690.
Foo, Li Chien. 1990. Hookworm infection and protein-energy malnutrition: transverse evidence from two Malaysian ecological groups. Tropical and Geographical Medicine 42:8–12.
Friedman, Gerald C. 1982. The heights of slaves in Trinidad. Social Science History 6:482–515.
Gilles, H.M., J.B. Lawson, M. Sibelas, A. Voller & N. Allan. 1969. Malaria, anemia and pregnancy. Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology 63:245–63.
Grabowski, Richard & Carl Pasurka. 1989. The relative efficiency of slave agriculture: an application of a stochastic production frontier. Applied Economics 21:587–595.
Gray, Lewis Cecil. 1933 [1958]. History of agriculture in the southern United States to 1860. Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA.
Harris, Bernard. 1994. Health, height, and history: an overview of recent developments in anthropometric history. Social History of Medicine 7:297–320.
Haskell, Thomas H. 1974. Were slaves more efficient: some doubts about 'time on the cross'. New York Review of Books: 38–42.
Haskell, Thomas H. 1975. The true and tragical history of 'time on the cross'. New York Review of Books: 33–39.
Helper, Hinton R. 1857 [1968]. The impending crisis of the south: how to meet it. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA.
Higman, Barry W. 1976. Slave population and economy in Jamaica, 1807–1834. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Higman, BarryW. 1979. Growth in Afro-Caribbean slave populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 50:373–385.
Higman, BarryW. 1984. Slave populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1833. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD.
Hofler, Richard & Sherman Folland. 1991. The relative efficiency of slave agriculture: a comment. Applied Economics 23:861–868.
Hotez, Peter J. & David I. Pritchard. 1995. Hookworm infection. Scientific American 272:68–74.
Keymer, A. & M. Pagel. 1990. Predisposition to helminth infection. Pp. 177–209 in Gerhard A. Schad & K.S. Warren (eds.) Hookworm Disease: Current Status and New Direction, Taylor and Francis, London.
Kilama, W.A. 1990. Hookworm infection and disease in Africa and the Middle East. Pp. 17–32 in Gerhard A. Schad & K.S. Warren (eds.) Hookworm Disease: Current Status and New Directions. Taylor and Francis, London.
Kiple, Kenneth F. 1984. The Caribbean Slave. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Kiple, Kenneth F. 1993. Disease ecologies of the Caribbean. Pp. 497–504 in Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.) The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Kiple, Kenneth F. & Brian T. Higgins. 1992. Yellow fever and the africanization of the Caribbean. Pp. 237–248 in John W. Verano & Douglas H. Ubelaker (eds.) Disease and Demography in the Americas, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
Kiple, Kenneth F. & Virginia Himmelsteib King. 1981. Another dimension to the black disapora. Cambridge University Press, New York, NY.
Knowlton, R.H. 1919. Hookworm infection among troops: treatment with oil of chenopodium. Journal of the American Medical Association 72:701–703.
Kunitz, Stephen J. 1988. Hookworm and pellagra: exemplary diseases in the new south. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29:139–148.
Latham, Michael C., Lani S. Stephenson, L.S. Hall, J.C. Wolgemuth, T.C. Elliot, & D.W. Crompton. 1983. Parasitic infections, anemia and nutritional status: a study of their interrelationships and the effects of prophylaxis and treatment on workers in Kwale district, Kenya. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 77:41–48.
Latham, Michael C., Lani S. Stephenson, Katheen M. Kurz, & Stephen N. Kinoti. 1990. Metrifonate or praziquantel treatment in improves physical fitness and appetite of Kenyan school boys with schistosoma haematobium and hookworm infections. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 43:170–179.
Lindert, Peter H. 1986. Comment. Pp. 527–37 in Stanley L. Engerman & Robert E. Gallman (eds.) Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
Lwambo, N.J.S., D.A.P. Bundy & G.H. Medley. 1992. A new approach to morbidity risk assessment in hookworm endemic communities. Epidemiology and Infection 108:469–481.
Mak, James & Gary M. Walton. 1972. Steamboats and the great productivity surge in river transportation. Journal of Economic History 32:619–640.
Marcus, Alan I. 1988. The south' native foreigner: hookworm as a factor in southern distinctiveness. Pp. 79–99 in Todd L. Savitt & James Harvey Young (eds.) Disease and Distinctiveness in the American South, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.
Margo, Robert A. & Richard H. Steckel. 1982. The heights of American slaves: new evidence on slave nutrition and health. Social Science History 6:516–538.
Margo, Robert A. & Richard H. Steckel. 1992. The nutrition and health of slaves and antebellum southern whites. Pp. 508–521 in Robert W. Fogel & Stanley L. Engerman (eds.) Without Consent and Contract: Technical Papers vol. ii, 4 Vol., W.W. Norton, New York, NY.
Marks, P.A. & R.T. Gross. 1959. Erythrocyte glucose-6-phosphate-dehydrogenase deficiency: evidence of differences between negroes and caucasians. Journal of Clinical Investigation 38:2253–2262.
McKeown, Thomas. 1976. The modern rise of population. Academic Press, New York, NY.
Meuris, Sylvain, Bokumu Bosango Piko, Peter Eerens, Anne-Marie Vanbellinghen, Michele Dramaix, & Philippe Hennart. 1993. Gestational malaria: assessment of its consequences on fetal growth. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 48:603–609.
Migasena, S. & H.M. Gilles. 1991. Clinical features and diagnosis. Pp. 179–193 in H.M. Gilles & P.A.J. Ball (eds.) Hookworm Infections, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Miller, Joseph C. 1988. Way of death. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Nelson, G.S. 1990. Hookworms in perspective. Pp. 417–430 in Gerhard A. Schad & K.S. Warren (eds.) Hookworm Disease: Current Status and New Directions, Taylor and Francis, London.
Oaks, Stanley C., Jr., Violaine S. Mitchell, Greg W. Pearson, & Charles C.J. Carpenter (eds.). 1991. Malaria: obstacles and opportunities. National Academy Press, Washington, DC.
Olmsted, Frederick Law. 1861 [1953]. The cotton kingdom: a traveler' observations on cotton and slavery in the American slave states. Arthur M. Schlesinger (ed.), Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell. 1918 [1966]. American negro slavery: a survey of the supply, employment and control of negro labor as determined by the plantation regime. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rogue, LA.
Ratard, R.C., L.E. Kouemeni, M.K. Ekanibessala & C.N. Ndamkou. 1992. Distribution of hookworm infection in cameroon. Annals of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology 86:413–418.
Revista de la Soc. Arg. de Biologia. 1925. Auto reinfection of hookworm. Journal of the American Medical Association 85:1263.
Roberts, Charles A. 1979. Inter regional per capita income differentials and convergence: 1880–1950. Journal of Economic History 39:101–112.
Rutman, Darrett B. & Anita H. Rutman. 1976. Of agues and fevers: malaria in the early Chesapeake, The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, 33:31–60.
Sambasivan, G. 1979. Malaria. Pp. 278–94 in W. Hobson (ed.) The Theory and Practice of Public Health, (5th ed.) Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Savitt, Todd L. 1989. Black health on the plantation: masters, slaves and physicians. Pp. 327–355 in Ronald L. Numbers & Todd L. Savitt (eds.) Science and Medicine in the Old South, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, LA.
Savitt, Todd L. & James Harvey Young (eds.). 1988. Disease and distinctiveness in the American South. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN.
Schad, Gerhard A. 1991. The parasite. Pp. 15–49 in H.M. Gilles & P.A.J. Ball (eds.) Hookworm Infections, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Schaefer, Donald F. & Mark Schmitz. 1979. The relative efficiency of slave agriculture: a comment. American Economic Review 69:208–212.
Shiff, C., W. Checkley, P. Winch, Z. Premji, J. Minjas, & P. Lubega. 1996. Changes in weight gain and anemia attributable to malaria in Tanzanian children living under holoendemic conditions. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 90:266–69.
Simpson, Joe Leigh. 1993. Are physical activity and employment related to preterm birth and low birth weight? American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 168:1231–1238.
Smillie, W.G. & D.L. Augustine. 1925. Intensity of hookworm infestation in Alabama. Journal of the American Medical Association 85:1958–1963.
Smith, G. 1990. The ecology of the free-living stages: a reappraisal. Pp. 89–104 in Gerhard A. Schad & K.S. Warren (eds.) Hookworm Disease: Current Status and New Directions, Taylor and Francis, London.
Stampp, Kenneth M. 1956. The peculiar institution: slavery in the antebellum south. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY.
Steckel, Richard H. 1979. Slave height profiles from coastwise manifests. Explorations in Economic History 16:363–380.
Steckel, Richard H. 1983. Height and per capita income. Historical Methods 16:1–7.
Steckel, Richard H. 1986a. Birth weights and infant mortality among American salves. Explorations in Economic History 23:173–198.
Steckel, Richard H. 1986b. A peculiar population: the nutrition, health, and mortality of American slaves from childhood to maturity. Journal of Economic History 46:721–42.
Steckel, Richard H. 1986c. A dreadful childhood: the excess mortality of American slaves. Social Science History 10:427–65.
Steckel, Richard H. 1987. Growth depression and recovery: the remarkable case of American slaves. Annals of Human Biology 14:111–32.
Steckel, Richard H. 1992. Work, disease, and diet in the health and mortality of American slaves. Pp. 489–507 in Robert W. Fogel & Stanley L. Engerman (eds.) Without Consent or Contract: Technical Papers vol. ii, 4 Vol., W.W. Norton, New York, NY.
Steketee, Richard W., Jack J. Wirima, Allen W. Hightower, Laurence Slutsker, David L. Heymann, & Joel G. Breman. 1996. The effect of malaria and malaria prevention in pregnancy on offspring birthweight, prematurity, and intrauterine growth retardation in rural Malawi. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 55:33–41.
Stephenson, Lani S., Kathleen M. Kurz, Michael C. Latham, Stephen N. Kinoti, & Martin L. Oduori. 1982. The effect of metrifonate on hookworm infections in Kenyan children treated for urinary schistosomiasis: a preliminary report. East African Medical Journal 59:640–641.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Elizabeth J. Adams, Stephen N. Kinoti, & Anne Pertet. 1992. Treatment with one or two doses of albendazole improves growth of Kenyan school children with hookworm, t. trichiura and a. lumbricoides infections. FASEB Journal 6: A1650 (abs.).
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Elizabeth J. Adams, Stephen N. Kinoti, & Anne Pertet. 1993a. Weight gain of Kenyan school children infected with hookworm, trichuris trichiura and ascaris lumbricoides is improved following once-or twice-yearly treatment with albendazole1;2. Journal of Nutrition 23:656–665.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Elizabeth J. Adams, Stephen N. Kinoti, & Anne Pertet. 1993b. Physical fitness, growth and appetite ofKenyan school boys with hookworm, trichuris trichiura and ascaris lumbricoides infections are improved four months after a single dose of albendazole. Journal of Nutrition 23:1036–1046.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Stephen N. Kinoti, Kathleen M. Kurz, & H. Brigham. 1990. Improvements in physical fitness of Kenyan school boys with hookworm, trichuris trichiura and ascaris lumbricoides infections following a single dose of albendazole. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 84:277–282.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Kathleen M. Kurz, Stephen N. Kinoti, Martin L. Oduori, & D.W. Crompton. 1985a. Relationships of schistosoma haematobium, hookworm and malarial infections and metrifonate treatment to hemoglobin level in Kenyan school children. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 34:519–528.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Kathleen M. Kurz, Stephen N. Kinoti, Martin L. Oduori, & D.W. Crompton. 1985b. Relationships of schistosoma haematobium, hookworm and malarial infections and metrifonate treatment to growth of Kenyan school children. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 34:1109–1118.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Kathleen M. Kurz, Dennis Miller, & Stephen N. Kinoti. 1986. Relationships of schistosoma haematobium, hookworm, and malarial infections and metrifonate treatment to nutritional status of Kenyan coastal school children: a 16-month follow-up. Pp. 26–68 in Lani S. Stephenson (ed.) Schistosomiasis and malnutrition, Cornell University International Nutrition Monograph Series, No. 16, Ithaca, NY.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Kathleen M. Kurz, Stephen N. Kinoti, & H. Brigham. 1989a. Treatment with a single dose of albendazole improves growth of Kenyan children with hookworm, trichuris trichiura and ascaris lumbricoides infections. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 41:78–87.
Stephenson, Lani S., Michael C. Latham, Kathleen M. Kurz, Stephen N. Kinoti. 1989b. Single dose of metrifonate or praziquantel treatment in Kenyan children. ii. effects on growth in relation to s. haematobium and hookworm egg counts. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 41:453–461.
Strickland, G. Thomas & Kenneth W. Hunter, Jr. (eds.). 1982. Immunoparasitology: principles and methods in malaria and schistosomiasis research. Praeger, New York, NY.
Stoltzfus, R.J., H.M. Chwaya, J.M. Tielsch, K.J. Schulze, M. Albonico, & L. Savioli. 1997. Epidemiology of iron deficiency anemia in Zanzibari schoolchildren: the importance of hookworms. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 65:153–159.
Sutch, Richard. 1976. The care and feeding of slaves. Pp. 231–301 in Paul A. David, Herbert G. Gutman, Richard Sutch et al. (eds.) Reckoning with Slavery, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Trussell, James & Richard H. Steckel. 1978. The age of slaves at menarche and their first birth. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8:477–505.
United States Bureau of the Census. 1855. Mortality statistics of the seventh census of the United States, 1850. A.O.P. Nicholson, Washington, DC.
United States Bureau of the Census. 1886. Report on the mortality and vital statistics of the United States as returned at the tenth census (June 1, 1880). GPO, Washington, DC.
United States Bureau of the Census. 1896. Report on vital and social statistics in the United States at the eleventh Census: 1890. Part i analysis and rate tables. GPO, Washington, DC.
United States Bureau of the Census. 1902. Census reports, volume iii. Twelfth census of the United States, taken in the year 1900. Vital statistics. Part i analysis and ratio tables. GPO, Washington, DC.
Vlach, John Michael. 1993. Back of the big house. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC.
Weisbrod, Burton A., Ralph L. Andreano, Robert E. Baldwin, Erwin H. Epstein, & Allen C. Kelly. 1973. Disease and economic development: the impact of parasitic diseases in St. Lucia. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, WI.
Wesenberg-Lund, Carl. 1920–1921. Contributions to the biology of the danish culicidae. Andr. Fred. Host and Son, Copenhagen.
Williams-Blangero, S., J. Blangero & M. Bradley. 1997. Quantitative genetic analysis of susceptibility to hookworm infection in a population from rural Zimbabwe. Human Biology 69:201–208.
Wills, Christopher. 1996. Yellow fever, black goddess. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
Wilson, Edward O. 1975. Sociobiology: the new synthesis. Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA.
Wright, Gavin. 1975. Slavery and the cotton boom. Explorations in Economic History 12:439–451.
Wright, Gavin. 1976. Prosperity, progress and American slavery. Pp. 302–336 in Paul A. David, Herbert G. Gutman, Richard Sutch, Peter Temin, & Gavin wright (eds.) Reckoning with slavery, Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
Wright, Gavin. 1979. The Efficiency of slavery: another interpretation. American Economic Review 69:219–226.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coelho, P.R., McGuire, R.A. Biology, Diseases, and Economics: An Epidemiological History of Slavery in the American South. Journal of Bioeconomics 1, 151–190 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010034830415
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010034830415