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Perfect Subjects : Race, Tuberculosis, and the Qu’Appelle BCG Vaccine Trial
University of British Columbia Library

Fall 1998
Document > Journal Article
Creators
Lux, Maureen K. (Maureen Katherine)
Description
"This article examines how Native children of the Qu’Appelle reserves in southern Saskatchewan became the subjects of a trial of the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis in 1933. Race and theories of racial evolution were referred to in the construction of the Native people as “primitives” and the reserves as disease menaces to the surrounding communities. Dr. R. G. Ferguson, medical superintendent of the nearby Qu’Appelle Sanatorium conducted the trial in order to prove that BCG could provide resistance to tuberculosis even among the “less evolved races.” While BCG afforded some protection against tuberculosis, nearly one-fifth of the children in the trial died from diseases of poverty, gastroenteritis and pneumonia, as a result of the lethal living conditions on the reserves"--abstract.

More Information

Statement of Responsibility
Maureen K. (Maureen Katherine) Lux.
Publication Information
Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press
Physical Description
1 online resource (19 pages)
Notes
Contained in: Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. Volume 15, number 2 (Fall 1998), p. 277-295.
Citation (APA Style): Lux, M. (1998). Perfect subjects: Race, tuberculosis, and the Qu'Appelle BCG vaccine trial. Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 15(2), 277-295. https://doi.org/10.3138/cbmh.15.2.277
Includes bibliographical references.
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