Foucault has two theories: “power over and power relations.” Power over is when dominance power that is in a hierarchy – someone is in charge and someone is not in charge. For example, when I discriminate against groups or people, I would be using power over them. A power relation is when dominance power is fluid. For example, when I communicate with others within the same or different cultures, colors, genders, and traditions, I would use the power relation to relate with these groups of people.  Personally, I believed that Science meant whoever had created a chemical - medicine makers, chemistry teachers and researchers. But when I read the articles that related to science I began to understand that there are deeper meanings. The word science has a very broad meaning.  The word science could mean skill, knowledge, art, or discipline. To be a successful scientist one has to follow four steps: theory, research, fact and conclusion. Using Foucault is two powers allows us understand how nature and race interact with society. In this essay we could state that through being kind to patients and being a black nurse, the doctors pretend to have a power relation with patient; however the by withholding information, they really had power over the patients.
The doctors of James Jones’s article, “The Rational Economy of Science” tried to motivate black patients to visit again and again.  Doctors treated them very nice and friendly. Initially if we referred to Foucault’s theory, this exchange is a power relation that doctors had with patients, even though the discrimination against black people, still strongly exists, patients were treated well by the doctors.  However, the doctors were treating the black patients in a sense, like experimental lab monkeys.  They used black people as their tools or research for other things.  When the black patients went in for a check up, the doctors already knew the problem that they had but did not dare to let them know.  So at this point, the doctors had Foucault’s “power over” on black patients by using them and not making them fully aware of the situation.  Doctors also did not want to tell them that they had syphilis because they thought that if their patients knew, the patients might end up committing suicide.  Doctors have the power over again by thinking black patients would not be able to understand.  I think some black patients already knew that they had the disease, but they just did not have a clue as to how to approach the problem. To protect themselves, doctors claim that if they were to tell their patients about the disease it would be a waste of time due to the fact that doctors considered black people as uneducated people. In addition he asserted, “The treatment was painful and usually required more than a year to complete.  As one CDC officer put it, the drugs offered more potential harm for the patients than potential benefit” (1930s. page 279), as a result, they would claim that they did not want to harm their patients without any potential benefit.
Looking back at Foucault’s theory; the doctor claimed to have a power relation with patients to make the doctor look not guilty.  I think what the doctor tried to say is to live one day at a time and try not to let things take away your happiness.  Since they stated that the treatment would not help, why bother telling the patients and worry them.  An excuse for this may be that it is, if you by chance die to day, then it would be today, it is written in our nature by God.  Nature is law and it is something that we have to follow.  It is already set up for us and we cannot challenge it.  Doctors may argue that they wanted to leave them as they were because it was the best; however, the doctors might think that they did not want to do anything much with black patients. They just wanted to use black patients as their study tools. That is a power which the doctors had over the black patients.
As for me, I prefer to know what is happening to me, because knowing what will happen I can prepare myself for the worse or seek out help.  To be able to live for an extra day or two means a lot to me.  With one day I could make someone else’s lives a little brighter, and with one day, I could make the world a little different.  Even though if I found out that my disease is a serious disease, I would still be happy to hear because if that is the way my life was meant to be, then there is nothing anyone can do about it. However, knowing ahead of time, I would be able to take care of some last minute things.
The press thought that it was unfair that the doctors did not tell the truth to their patients of the disease they had.  During the visit, doctors did not tell what kind of disease the patients had or the side effects of treatment.  The press had Foucault’s “power over” on doctors.  My personal opinion is that doctors did not want to tell their patients because they might scare the patients away.  The patients might look for somewhere else that could make them feel more secure and safe.
Dr. J W. William told the press that it was true that some doctors did not do their job.  They actually did not let their patients know what kind of illness they had, nor did they treat their patients.  So Dr. J.W. William has the power relation of Foucault’s theory communicated by the press.  On the other hand, Dr. J.W. William informed the press that all the other doctors did not want to tell their patients of their condition because those doctors theorize that their patient would not be able to comprehend the information.  The entire doctors, including Dr. J. W. William, look down upon their black patients as being uneducated.  Dr. J. W. William says, “We did not tell them we were looking for syphilis.  I do not think they would have known what that was.”  (1932. page 278).  Dr. J.W. William used Foucault power relations by backed up the other doctors. They also thought of black patients (black people) as having bad blood. So if the doctors knew that black people had syphilis, they would be ignored.
Later on in the article it mentioned that they hired a black nurse. I think when these doctors hired the black nurse they wanted to earn more money for themselves.  By hiring a black nurse they would be able to attract more black patients to their hospital.  So in this case I am not sure what power that doctors had on black nurse.  It could be the “power relation” because the doctors let the black nurse work with them.  In another way, it could be the “power over” because the doctors used the black nurse to make more income.  Nurse Betty had “power over” some of the doctors by convincing patients to go to doctors.  Nurse Betty was the liaison, so she could bring the black community to only a hospital that she was working for, then has the power over black patients.  She made all the patients trust and believed in her by treating them nicely.  In another way, she was doing what the doctors had been doing.  When the black patients came to visit, she would says, “He is under study and not to be treated”, by saying this, nurse Betty might not want the doctors to give the treatment to the patients that had the same ethnicity as her.  But why this black nurse had power over theory with other black patients? Due to the fact that the nurse still did not inform the truth about what actually goes on. I am still uncertain about this point.
For the new generations, I hope that when we look up this article, we gain some of the knowledge as to how wrong people were being treated back then and we can correct these wrongs.  Humans should be given rights and should be treated like humans and not some specimens of science. “Sometimes, with the best of intentions, scientists and public officials and others involved in working for the benefit of us all, forget that people are people”(1932. Page 279).  We should know that the doctors pretend to have a power relation over the black patients and black nurse.  However the by withholding information, they really had power over the patients.  In this case the power over and power relation of Foucault exists again.  So through science we knew that it had the theory, research, fact and the conclusion, and then we saw that in this essay the theory of the doctors was that the patients were not smart enough to understand their illnesses.  The research of doctors thought that there was nothing else that more important then their experience.  Then doctors came to the conclusion that black patients would not be treated with any treatments.
 
 

James H. Joyce (1993). Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Bad Blood: The Tuskegee
Syphilis Experiment, New Expanded Edition, 275-287. Free Press.
Fillingham, Liydia Alix, “Foucault for Beginners”. Writers and readers Publishing: N.Y.    1993.