Remembering St. Louis Individual; Structural Violence and Acute Bacterial Infections in a Historical Anatomical Collection

Incomplete documentary evidence, variable biomolecular preservation, and limited skeletal responses have hindered assessment of acute infections in the past. This study was initially developed to explore the diagnostic potential of dental calculus to identify infectious diseases, however, the breadth and depth of information gained from a particular individual, St. Louis Individual (St.LI), enabled an individualized assessment and demanded broader disciplinary introspection of ethical research conduct. Here, we document the embodiment of structural violence in a 23 year old Black, and or, African American male, who died of lobar pneumonia in 1930s St. Louis, Missouri. St.LI exhibits evidence of systemic poor health, including chronic oral infections and a probable tuberculosis infection. Ante- and perimortem evidence of St.LIs lived experiences chronicle the poverty, systemic racism, and racebased structural violence experienced by marginalized communities in St. Louis and which contributed to St.LIs poor health, CoD, anatomization, and inclusion in the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Collection. These same embodied inequalities continue to manifest as health disparities affecting many contemporary communities in the United States.