Black Medicine/White Bodies

Black Medicine/White Bodies: An Investigation of Charleston’s Yellow Fever Epidemics 1854-1871 focuses on the role of traditional African folk healers in the South Carolina Lowcountry. The exhibit examines the lasting contributions of traditional African folk healers to South Carolina’s history by illustrating the contrasting approaches to healthcare and treatment of disease by African folk healers and mainstream Western medical practitioners during the yellow fever epidemics that plagued Charleston during the mid-19th century.