1930's Medicine and Health | The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

Letters

By: Taliaferro Clark; Hugh S. Cumming

Date: August 29, 1932; September 20, 1932

Source: Clark, Taliaferro, Letter to J. N. Baker. August 29, 1932; Cumming, Hugh S. Letter to R. R. Morton. September 20, 1932. Reprinted in Reverby, Susan M., ed. Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.

About the Authors: Dr. Taliaferro Clark was the assistant Surgeon General in charge of the Venereal Disease division of the Public Health Service in 1932. He developed the idea of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment and oversaw it for a year before retiring.

Hugh S. Cumming (1869–1948) was born in Virginia and graduated from medical school there in 1894. He then joined the Marine Hospital Service, later to be known as the Public Health Service (PHS). He worked up through the ranks and was appointed...