{"id":11031,"date":"2009-09-30T11:35:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T18:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=11031"},"modified":"2023-01-23T13:24:35","modified_gmt":"2023-01-23T21:24:35","slug":"the-prisoner-as-model-organism-malaria-research-at-stateville-penitentiary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=11031","title":{"rendered":"The prisoner as model organism: malaria research at Stateville Penitentiary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Nathaniel Comfort<\/h4>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"172\" height=\"230\" src=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/studhistphilbiolbimed.jpg\" alt=\"Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences\" class=\"wp-image-11032\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They acted as secretaries and technicians, recording data on one another, administering malarious mosquito bites and experimental drugs to one another, and helping decide who was admitted to the project and who became eligible for early parole as a result of his participation. Thus, the prisoners were not simply research subjects; they were deeply constitutive of the research project. Because a prisoner\u2019s time on the project was counted as part of his sentence, and because serving on the project could shorten one\u2019s sentence, the project must be seen as simultaneously serving the functions of research and punishment. Michel Foucault wrote about such \u2018mixed mechanisms\u2019 in his Discipline and punish. His shining example of such a \u2018transparent\u2019 and subtle style of punishment was the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham\u2019s architectural invention of prison cellblocks arrayed around a central guard tower. Stateville prison was designed on Bentham\u2019s model; Foucault featured it in his own discussion. This paper, then, explores the power relations in this highly idiosyncratic experimental system, in which the various roles of model organism, reagent, and technician are all occupied by sentient beings who move among them fluidly. This, I argue, created an environment in the Stateville hospital wing more panoptic than that in the cellblocks. Research and punishment were completely interpenetrating, and mutually reinforcing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Comfort N. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2789481\/pdf\/nihms123006.pdf\">The prisoner as model organism: malaria research at Stateville Penitentiary. <\/a>Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2009;40(3):190-203. doi:10.1016\/j.shpsc.2009.06.007<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nathaniel Comfort Abstract In a military-sponsored research project begun during the Second World War, inmates of the Stateville Penitentiary in Illinois were infected with malaria and treated with experimental drugs that sometimes had vicious side effects. They were made into reservoirs for the disease and they provided a food supply for the mosquito cultures. They &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/library.consciencelaws.org\/?p=11031\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The prisoner as model organism: malaria research at Stateville Penitentiary&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[554,131,2,1024],"tags":[738,740],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-11031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-human-experimentation","category-journal-article","category-research","tag-nathaniel-comfort","tag-stateville-penitentiary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\r\n<title>The prisoner as model organism: malaria research at Stateville Penitentiary - Protection of Conscience Project 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