Famished for Freedom: Pellagra and Medical Clemency at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

Abstract

This paper provides a case study of one medical experiment conducted in 1915 by the United States Public Health Service in collaboration with the Mississippi State Penitentiary. The experiment was non-therapeutic and its objective was to induce pellagra (a vitamin deficiency disease) in twelve healthy White male prisoners to confirm its etiology. Extant archival records produced by the convict participants, state politicians, and health researchers underscore that the men selected for the pellagra experiment were unique among incarcerated people in Mississippi at the time: they were White, wealthy, and politically well-connected. This paper contends that the convict participants leveraged a wide range of social and political connections to secure their participation in the pellagra experiment as an expeditious pathway to pre-arranged executive pardon, a phenomenon that I term medical clemency. By situating the 1915 pellagra prison experiment amid the broader landscape of incarceration, public health research, and systems of political patronage in Mississippi, this paper highlights the ways in which penal systems are embedded in broader social and political contexts. Not only did the experiment exacerbate pre-existing social inequalities behind bars, it also had lasting consequences for those involved in prison medical research - namely, the power to determine which kinds of convicts could ultimately re-enter the social order.