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"Drapetomania" was a psychiatric diagnosis proposed in 1851 by Louisiana physician Samuel A. Cartwright to explain the tendency of black slaves to flee captivity. As some slave owners felt they were improving the lives of their slaves, they could not understand the slaves' desire to escape. Psychiatry is the branch of medicine that studies, diagnoses and treats mental illness and behavioral disorders. ...
1851 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
The history of slavery in the United States began soon after Europeans first settled in the area (and so even before the founding of the United States), and officially ended with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. ...
As such, Drapetomania is an important historical example of scientific racism. The term derives from the Greek δραπετης (drapetes, "a runaway [slave]") + μανια (mania, "madness, frenzy"). Scientific racism is racist propaganda disguised as science. ...
The diagnosis appeared in a paper published in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, where Dr. Cartwright argued that the tendency of slaves to run away from their captors was in fact a treatable medical disorder. His feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented." Cartwright proposed whipping as the most effective treatment of this disorder. Amputation of the toes was also prescribed [1]. Whipping on a post Flagellation is the act of whipping (Latin flagellum, whip) the human body. ...
Cartwright also described another disorder, Dysaethesia Aethiopica, to explain the apparent lack of motivation exhibited by many slaves, which he also claimed could be cured by whipping. Drapetomania was a psychiatric diagnosis identified in 1851 by Louisiana physician Samuel A. Cartwright to explain the tendency of black slaves to flee captivity. ...
Reference
- Samuel A. Cartwright, "Report on the diseases and physical peculiarities of the Negro race", The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal 1851:691-715 (May)
See also Beginning in the 1960s, a movement called anti-psychiatry claimed that psychiatric patients are not ill but are individuals that do not share the same consensus reality as most people in society. ...
The idea that humans existed before Adam, which is known as the Pre-Adamite hypothesis or Preadamism, has a long history, probably having its origins in early pagan responses to Jewish and Christian claims regarding the origins of the human race. ...
Scientific racism is racist propaganda disguised as science. ...
Drapetomania was a psychiatric diagnosis identified in 1851 by Louisiana physician Samuel A. Cartwright to explain the tendency of black slaves to flee captivity. ...
The White Mans Burden is a Eurocentric view of the world used to encourage powerful nations to adopt an imperial role. ...
Sluggishly progressing schizophrenia was a fifth category of schizophrenia diagnosed by psychiatrists in the Soviet Union. ...
External links - An Early History - African American Mental Health
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