Juden und Tuberkulose

Abstract In my article, I discuss the American debate on the predisposition of Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries toward tuberculosis. In focusing on the illness, I compare the Jewish population with the African American population. While physicians at the time thought that there was widespread immunity to the disease among Jews, it was reported that there was an above-average number of cases among African Americans. Both groups differed significantly from white Americans. I argue that not only differences but similarities between Jews and non-Jews, too, were written into the medical discourse at the time. I demonstrate this through an analysis of contemporary medical texts. I believe that historians have overwhelmingly neglected to incorporate such publications into their analyses, because they feared that the historical evidence they contain might challenge their assumptions.