User:Tcmongo/New sandbox

She was, toward the end of her life, blind and almost completely paralyzed (she could talk, and had some ability to move her right arm)[5]when Barnum started to exhibit her on August 10, 1835, at Niblo's Garden in New York City.[3][6] For skeptics that discounted the legitimacy of Heth's age, her body aided in the belief of her exaggerated age. Harriet Washington states that at the time of her display, Heth had a very small frame, deep wrinkles, was toothless, and had fingernails that resembled talons. Washington explains that Heth's toothless mouth was a result from Barnum forcefully extracting her teeth so that she would look older. As a 7-month traveling exhibit for Barnum, Heth told stories about "little George" and sang a hymn.[7] Eric Lott claims that Heth earned the impresario $1,500 a week, a princely sum in that era.[8] Barnum's career as a showman took off.[9] Her case was discussed extensively in the press. As doubt had been expressed about her age, Barnum announced that upon her death she would be publicly autopsied. She died the next year.[1][6]Barnum stated that Joice's remains were "buried respectably" in his home town of Bethel, Connecticut.[10]

Public autopsy[edit]
Joice Heth died in New York City on February 19, 1836, aged around 79. To gratify public interest, Barnum set up a public autopsy.[11]Barnum engaged the service of a surgeon, Dr. David L. Rogers, who performed the autopsy on February 25, 1836, in front of fifteen hundred spectators in New York's City Saloon, with Barnum charging fifty cents admission.[2] This was all done without the consent of Heth. When Rogers declared the age claim a fraud, Barnum insisted that the autopsy victim was another person, and that Heth was alive, on a tour to Europe. Later,[when?] Barnum admitted the hoax.[3]

Impact/contribution to American medicine [addition]
Heth's autopsy is a very important event in American history and medicine, not because of any medical advances, but due to the impact it had on science and its perception of Black Americans. Heth's public autopsy was ordered by the way of Barnum in order to silence and discredit any skeptics and disbelievers. Heth was not the only of her kind to be publicly displayed and exploited. There were many Black Americans that were apart of various circus shows and exhibited as "subhuman" creatures or freaks of nature. Heth's exploitation during her life and after, emphasized the American perception of black bodies being "distinctly alien". Heth's body, and many others, were displayed in order that 19th century white scientists could provide some type of support for their theory that black bodies were medically inferior in all ways to those of white bodies.