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“Inventing” the Spirometer Working-Class Bodies in Victorian England

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 1 focuses on mid-nineteenth century Britain when John Hutchinson published his studies on the spirometer and exhibited the instrument and his data to elite London societies. Hutchinson was ... More

Chapter 1 focuses on mid-nineteenth century Britain when John Hutchinson published his studies on the spirometer and exhibited the instrument and his data to elite London societies. Hutchinson was the first to name the spirometer and the entity it purported to measure and to classify spirometric data according to occupational categories.Less

Black Lungs and White Lungs: The Science of White Supremacy in the Nineteenth-Century United States

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 2 explores the uptake of the spirometer in the U.S. where it was used to study racial difference in a large anthropometric study at the end of the Civil War. While Frederick Hoffman drew on ... More

Chapter 2 explores the uptake of the spirometer in the U.S. where it was used to study racial difference in a large anthropometric study at the end of the Civil War. While Frederick Hoffman drew on this study to argue that blacks were not fit for freedom, black intellectuals vociferously contested the interpretation of the data.Less

The Professionalization of Physical Culture: Making and Measuring Whiteness

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 3 examines the use of spirometer in physical education at U.S. college and universities and its role in monitoring and marking Anglo-Saxon manhood and womanhood.

Progress and Race: Vitality in Turn-of-the-Century Britain

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 4 examines the spirometer in physical education in mid-nineteenth century Britain and its later use by Francis Galton as part of a test for “bodily efficiency” that he considered useful in ... More

Chapter 4 examines the spirometer in physical education in mid-nineteenth century Britain and its later use by Francis Galton as part of a test for “bodily efficiency” that he considered useful in civil service examinations when there was anxiety over “race deterioration.”Less

Globalizing Spirometry: The “Racial Factor” in Scientific Medicine

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 5 tracks the spirometer as it moved among the U.S., Britain, and South Africa at a moment when users recognized the pressing need to distinguish between “normal” and “abnormal” lung capacity.

Adjudicating Disability in the Industrial Worker

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 6 focuses on a particular site of technological innovation in Britain after the Second World War. The Pneumoconiosis Research Unit was established to investigate disease among coal miners. ... More

Chapter 6 focuses on a particular site of technological innovation in Britain after the Second World War. The Pneumoconiosis Research Unit was established to investigate disease among coal miners. Unit staff deployed the spirometer to assess the seemingly intractable problem of disability.Less

Diagnosing Silicosis: Physiological Testing in South African Gold Mines

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

Chapter 7 centers on the use of the spirometer in South Africa to adjudicate disability claims among gold miners, but only in whites. Black miners at the time were largely excluded from monitoring ... More

Chapter 7 centers on the use of the spirometer in South Africa to adjudicate disability claims among gold miners, but only in whites. Black miners at the time were largely excluded from monitoring for disease and compensation for silicosis.Less

How Race Takes Root

Lundy Braun

in Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Career of the Spirometer from Plantation to Genetics

The Epilogue brings the topic up to the present.