An Ill-bred Culture of Experimentation: Malaria Therapy and Race in the United States Public Health Service Laboratory at the South Carolina State Hospital, 1932-1952.

This article examines the malaria fever therapy experiments conducted by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) at the Williams Laboratory on the grounds of the South Carolina State Hospital (SCSH) from 1932 to 1952, focusing on the ethical implications and racial disparities involved. The program used malaria infection as a treatment for neurosyphilis, maintaining patients—predominantly African American—as reservoirs for malaria transmission and subjecting them to extreme fevers and repeated insect bites without informed consent or compensation. African American patients, segregated in the poorly equipped State Park Unit (SPU), experienced significantly higher mortality rates and harsher experimental conditions compared to White patients, reflecting prevailing scientific racism and systemic exploitation. Despite the advent of penicillin as a cure for syphilis, the malaria therapy program continued, underscoring ongoing ethical violations and the intersection of race, class, and mental illness in medical experimentation during this period.