Reginald Horsman’s book recounts the life of Josiah Nott, a South Carolina physician who epitomized the racist theories of his day.  But Horsman’s account of Nott’s life is no simple diatribe on southern concepts of black inferiority in a slave economy.  Rather, Horsman weaves together nineteenth century medical theories and historical information on southern plantation society in an attempt to discover the influences behind Nott’s medical career and the physician’s ideas on the superiority of the white race.  According to Horsman, “Nott certainly had principles and morals, but he had devoted much of his life to an ardent defense of the proposition that blacks were inherently inferior to whites” (1).  Horsman explains the two seemingly contradictory aspects of Nott’s character by stating that Nott is “proof that liberal thinking on scientific and religious matters could be combined with extreme racism” (18).  What results is an engaging account of one man’s thoughts and actions and how those thoughts reflect the social ideas of his time, and, concurrently, how Nott influenced his society with his own medical theories.

 According to Horsman, Nott descended from an intellectual line of European immigrants to America.  Nott’s father, Abraham, moved to South Carolina in the seventeenth century, and began to practice law.  Abraham and Nott’s mother, Angelica, raised several children, many of whom cultivated professional careers upon reaching adulthood.  Nott and most of his brothers became physicians; another brother became a lawyer.

 Horsman suggests that Nott demonstrated early on a passion for medicine.  He attended South Carolina College where he fell under the influence of Thomas Cooper.  Cooper developed a reputation in South Carolina for being a “controversialist.”  Cooper supported both states rights and the inferiority of blacks—two views seemingly in sync with popular southern sentiment—but Cooper also angered South Carolina clergy with his attacks on the Bible, including his assertions that the world was much older than clergy assumed.  Cooper’s ideas—both his religious skepticism and his racial theories—would influence Nott’s own professional career.

 Nott attended the medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and after graduating, accepted a position “demonstrating” anatomy in medical classes.  During Nott’s early career as a physician, he demonstrated his ability to accept new medical theories.  French doctor Francois Broussais, who believed ailments were connected to gastrointestinal problems, and could be cured through leech-induced bleeding, early on influenced Nott.  Nott practiced bleeding for a while, but turned against the practice in the 1830’s when he fell under the medical influences of Pierre Louis, who believed in categorizing diseases and cures.

In May 1836, Nott moved his family to Moblie, and in 1841, became a part of the Mobile Medical Society.  Sometime after, Nott turns to mesmerism, or the use of hypnotism to calm his patients before surgically operating on them.  It was also in the 1840’s that Nott began to cultivate his racial theories.  Nott attempted to justify these theories by concluding that blacks possessed lesser brains, and that “civilization had always depended on the Caucasian race and could survive only if the Caucasian strain was unadulterated by weaker strains” (91).

Nott’s insistence on the inferiority of black individuals found a ready audience in South Carolina, and even in Europe.  Nott gained prestige as a racial theorist with the publication of his book, Types of Manhood, in the 1850’s, in which he argued that there were different species within each race.  When the Civil War broke out, Nott supported wholeheartedly the Southern cause, and worked in the Confederate General Army Hospital.  After the South’s loss, Nott became disillusioned, but continued to disseminate his theories, even publishing a book, Contributions to Bone and Nerve Surgery, in which Nott used his experience as a war surgeon to postulate on orthopedic medicine. Nott died in the 1870’s.

Horsman’s account of Josiah Nott clearly indicates the physician’s contributions to racial ideas cultivated in the South as well as in Europe.  The author manages to infuse historical fact and biographical information in an engaging narrative that demonstrates Nott’s “prestige” as a medical expert postulating on racial theories.  Horsman’s sources mainly consist of Nott’s writings, correspondence, and publications, lending credence to his subject (for, arguably, no better record exists of a person’s ideas than the person himself).  Overall, Horsman manages to bring to life the man behind the racial theories, thus demonstrating Nott’s influence on the racially charged United States in the nineteenth century.
 
Sarabeth Crowley