Summary of Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 On January 29, 1951, David Lacks sat behind the wheel of his old Buick, watching the rain fall. He was parked under a towering oak tree outside Johns Hopkins Hospital with three of his children—two still in diapers—waiting for their mother, Henrietta. She had been telling her closest friends something was wrong with her sex life, but she still said no when she was pregnant with Joe, her fifth child.

#2 Henrietta was diagnosed with a tumor on her cervix, but when she went to the hospital, she was treated for syphilis. She had six children with her husband, and she was never able to travel. She was asymptomatic neuro syphilitic, and her husband had no liking for sexual intercourse.

#3 Henrietta was a prime example of how little black patients knew about their health. She had never heard of cervical cancer, and when she went to the hospital, she was sent home with a diagnosis of no abnormality of the cervix. Three months later, she had a full-blown tumor.

#4 Henrietta Lacks was a woman whose cells were taken and sold by the thousands without her consent. She was born in 1920 in Virginia, and her cells were taken and sold by the thousands without her consent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669354338

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Insights on Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On January 29, 1951, David Lacks sat behind the wheel of his old Buick, watching the rain fall. He was parked under a towering oak tree outside Johns Hopkins Hospital with three of his children—two still in diapers—waiting for their mother, Henrietta. She had been telling her closest friends something was wrong with her sex life, but she still said no when she was pregnant with Joe, her fifth child.

#2

Henrietta was diagnosed with a tumor on her cervix, but when she went to the hospital, she was treated for syphilis. She had six children with her husband, and she was never able to travel. She was asymptomatic neuro syphilitic, and her husband had no liking for sexual intercourse.

#3

Henrietta was a prime example of how little black patients knew about their health. She had never heard of cervical cancer, and when she went to the hospital, she was sent home with a diagnosis of no abnormality of the cervix. Three months later, she had a full-blown tumor.

#4

Henrietta Lacks was a woman whose cells were taken and sold by the thousands without her consent. She was born in 1920 in Virginia, and her cells were taken and sold by the thousands without her consent.

#5

The Lacks family was very poor, and they had to work extremely hard to provide for themselves. Henrietta and Day would wake up at four o’clock every morning to milk the cows and feed the chickens, then head to the tobacco fields with their cousins. They would spend most of their days there, planting tobacco behind mule-drawn plows.

#6

Henrietta and her cousins would help the Lacks family unload their tobacco onto the wood-plank floor of the warehouse. The auctioneer would list the numbers, and the children would run around the tobacco piles talking in a fast gibberish to sound like the auctioneer.

#7

Henrietta’s cousins, Cliff and Crazy Joe, were in love with her. They would do anything to get her attention, including jumping through ice ponds. Cliff and Joe had children together,