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Racialized understandings of lung capacity further develop through widespread study.

1864

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Samuel Cartwright, a physician and slaveholder, is the first to use a spirometer to measure racial differences in lung capacity. He claims that he can prove that enslaved Black people have 20% less lung capacity than white people, which he believes is due to their "biological inferiority." He argues that Black people lack "vitality," a condition that can only be "cured" by forced labor. In 1864, a larger study is launched under the leadership of Benjamin Gould to "prove" Cartwright's results.