Disability Rights, Dr. Philip Pallister, and the Politics of Genetics in Montana

In 1947, Dr. Philip Pallister established his medical practice in Boulder, Montana, a small community thirty miles south of the state capital. The town was home to the state’s institution for the “feeble minded,” which offered him a guaranteed income as a consulting physician. Under his guidance this facility for individuals with mental and physical disorders acquired updated medical equipment, hired professional medical staff, and implemented basic hygienic care. These measures decreased tuberculosis, pneumonia, and death rates. Genetic screenings enhanced diagnosis and treatment.

Using his scientific knowledge and humanistic expertise, Pallister changed more than the institution. As mayor, he brought clean water and basic sanitation to town. He contributed to the emerging field of genetics and disability rights, by discovering and naming genetic disorders, publishing articles in medical journals, speaking at national and international conferences, transforming public perceptions of people with disabilities, overturning state policies and laws, and working with genetic specialists and associations for the disabled. He fought eugenics and ended Montana’s forced sterilization policies.

Pallister’s story illuminates how a rural practitioner employed science and political action to overturn prevailing paradigms of medical practice and to secure more dignified treatment for patients with disabilities. This doctor’s expertise, however important, was only one piece in the democratic process of changing institutions, educational policies, and public health at mid-century. Social reform also relied on the expertise and civic and educational actions of parents, legislators, the Montana Association for Retarded Children, State Extension Service, and League of Women Voters.