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Chapter 6. Racial Characteristics 14
i
and which, if substantiated, would have great practical importance. We
refer to the possibility of a differential susceptibility to various diseases.
The discussion concerning whether the Negro is innately susceptible to
certain diseases has had a history similar to the discussion concerning
whether the Negro is mentally inferior to the white man.^^ The first
inference was that the difference in specific disease rates was due to differ-
ences in biological constitution. An elaborate explanation was built up in
terms of the Negro’s biological inability to adapt to a cold climate, the
dark color of the Negro’s viscera, the maldistribution of the Negro’s nerve
cells, and so on. The great decline in the Negro death rate since the turn
of the century, almost paralleling, at a higher level, the decline in the
white death rate,® forced investigators to recognize environmental factors.
The mode of investigation then became one of holding constant a few
environmental factors—such as rural-urban residence and economic status
—
and attributing the remaining discrepancies to differences in innate suscepti-
bility. In some studies the explicit assumption is made, without evidence,
that there are no other relevant differences in the average living conditions
of Negroes and whites. In other studies the same assumption is made
implicitly. Few, if any, investigators have realized fully that the whole
mode of existence of Negroes—with their segregation, over-crowding,
and ignorance—helps to create a higher disease rate as compared to whites;
and that these factors cannot be held constant completely because there
is no group exactly comparable in the white world.
The Implication is that only an experimental procedure, in which all
environmental factors were controllable, would answer the question as to
what degree the present difference in disease and death rates is due to an
inferior biological constitution on the part of the Negroes. This experiment
would have to take into consideration the fact that resistance to disease is
a function not only of heredity and environment at a certain time, but also
of environmental conditions throughout the life history of the individuals
under observation—for resistance to disease is built up in an individual
during his childhood and even before his birth.^®
We may briefly consider the facts concerning differences in disease and
death rates between Negroes and whites.^^ First, we must observe that the
reporting of deaths and the designation of a cause of death are very
inadequate. This has significance in studying differences between Negroes
and whites, for Negroes are concentrated in those population groups for
which reporting is least complete. Second, the fact that certain beliefs are
prevalent about Negro susceptibilities, and that there is often a question
as to what shall be ’reported as the ^^cause of death,” make the official
statistics an imperfect source for determining ethnic differences in disease.
This Is especially important in the case of those diseases to which Negroes
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