The Diseases Of The Negro
HISTORY
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Medical Association of Louisiana charged Cartwright with investigating "the diseases and physical peculiarities of the negro race". His report was delivered as a speech at its annual meeting on March 12, 1851, and published in its journal. The most sensationalistic portions of it, on drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica , were reprinted in DeBow's Review . He subsequently prepared an abbreviated version, with sources cited, for Southern Medical Reports .
"If they nonetheless became dissatisfied with their condition, they should be whipped to prevent them from running away." In describing his theory and cure for drapetomania, Cartwright relied on passages of Christian scripture dealing with slavery .
Cartwright also invented another 'disorder', dysaesthesia aethiopica , a disease "affecting both mind and body." Cartwright used his theory to explain the perceived lack of work ethic among slaves. Dysaesthesia aethiopica, "called by overseers 'rascality'," was characterized by partial insensitivity of the skin and "so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep." Other symptoms included "lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms."
According to Cartwright, dysaesthesia aethiopica was "much more prevalent among free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc." — indeed, according to Cartwright, "nearly all [free negroes] are more or less afflicted with it, that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of them."
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Cartwright then has a section titled “Negro Consumption,” which he blames on “erythism of mind,” or “sulkiness and dissatisfaction.”
Amazing what physicians and scientists came up with 175 years ago.
and the remedies...like cocaine, laudanum etc
I wonder if they teach that in American schools.
In America , some people want to acknowledge slavery existed without acknowledging the racism.
Most of the thinking of physicians and scientists of the 19th century aren’t taught in our school system. What would you cut out to make room for this inclusion?
This theory, and other similar ones , were used to justify and spread racism. That is part of our history whether you like it or not.
It’s not a matter of me like it or not, it’s a matter of understanding the how these theories came about.
Seems Dr Cartwright was just a Antebellum Era quack.
And some people seem to want to acknowledge racism in everything that happens today. What is the point of dredging up a 170 year old journal article other than to try to link it to racism today. Most everybody acknowledges that racism still exists today, but it is better and not as wide spread as it was in the past. I would rather work towards the future then continue to rehash and relive the past, wouldn't you?
Racism today IS connected to the past.
White people, in general, want to acknowledge slavery existed (what choice do they have?) but they do not want to pin it on racism. On this very seed someone has to mention Greece, Rome, pre-Columbian whatever, China, etc.
Any explanation but racism.
That is why information like this is useful.
You're broad-brushing too hard. Not all white people are infected like this, people are people.
You're the only one I can see who's done this. It seems you are pushing racism for racism's sake rather than to educate and inform.
I have looked into the history of American racism probably more than anyone else on this forum. Once you know the truth it becomes important to give it the light of day.
You are the master JR.
A legitimate question is which came first, slavery or racism.
Perhaps a prejudice against white people.
Racism, in the United States, was devised as a justification for slavery. That is why "Dr. Cartwright" said what he did.
Perhaps you dont know what you are talking about.
Perhaps, what makes you think that you do?
So you agree that institutional racism followed slavery.
That is a dim bulb conclusion! American slavery was based upon institutional racism! Jim Crow and the peonage system were also and were an extension of slavery just by other names.
Other’s disagree:
I must ask what distinction are you making above? A. Slavery came before race/ethnicity subordination in the United States? B. Racialization is a social construct founded in the U.S. C. There has never been and/or is not now institutional racism in the U.S. D. Something else.
A.
You may have "looked into it", but you have never experienced it personally as a person of color yourself. Being of Mexican American descent and having grown up in a small town on AZ/Mexico border, I grew up with it from the white Mormon minority that ran the town. The thing you routinely miss is that your truth does not necessarily mean other people's truths.
Have you also looked into the racism/slavery that existed and still exists in South America, Central America, Africa, and Asia and posted articles about it?
Please try to give so-called American systemic racism a rest, because it only exists in the fantasy minds of a minority of racists. Even a lot of black and brown people don't believe that swill anymore.
If you want to find the 20th/21st century root cause of systemic racism, look no further than Planned Parenthood and learn how many millions of innocent babies they murder each year.
Racism, or call it tribalism by race. Several other hominids were hunted to extinction before we became dominant.
Slavery is racism's child.
Jasper, Jasper, Jasper. So you think there is enough justice for everyone in this country, eh? Well, let's move on then: Who the "h" are republicans to insist what baby a girl or woman OUGHT to have because some conservative SAY SO? I suggest not being empowered to stop the implanting of a "child" in a girl's or woman's womb and becoming the equivalence of "barefoot and pregnant" for the umpteenth time because some man secretes on the 'inside' -by hook or crook. . . leading to a lifetime of taking care of a ill-gotten 'gain' that SHALL NOT BE PROPERLY LOVED AND ALWAYS TOLD THE STORY OF HOW 'IT' CAME TO BE AN ALIEN. . . possibly abandoned. . . or forced to be fed. . . is a new IMPROVED form of slavery.
As evil as slavery and racism are, I think what you try to do here is much worse. What makes it even more evil is that I think you know it but continue anyway. I think you want racism as much as most people want to win the lottery.
Wow. That OUGHT to fix broken things in this country just fine and dandy.
Somebody wrote "as evil as slavery and racism are. . . " are, present tense, and then turned sideways to bite "the messenger" making a delivery. You can't make such idiocy up. It has to happen right before your eyes! Shut your eyes and it will all just go away! People have tried that already, and its still there when they open them again!
In order to justify subjugation of races many methods are employed. The most successful and common method is religion--and the perversion of it.
Samuel Cartwright, a medical scholar of the time, used his influence and prestige to blunt the rising tide of Abolition in America.
In general, might makes right has always been the justification behind religion. The great slaveholding societies of Rome, Greece, West Africa, pre columbian America, China, etc were not religiously based. Exceptions, like the Islamic states, do exist of course.
Religion, specifically evangelical religion, was the driving force behind abolition in this country.
The preeminent doctor in the county thought FDR's high blood pressure was good for him just a few generations ago.
The accepted beliefs of doctors often have short shelf lives.
Indeed. Most of us on this board are old enough to remember when there were ash trays in a doctors exam room and smoking EVERYWHERE was allowed.
Automobiles were oft judged by how many ash trays they had, even those tiny little (*%&ers in the armrests.
And now it's the number of drink and juice box holders...
Too funny because it is so true.
I think there are 8 in my 4 door sedan, lol.
The ash tray is removable (it's in the trunk now)
but it has front and rear lighter sockets
now used to charge cell phones.
Evolution...
Racism is a derivative of bigotry which is a derivative of tribalism. Interestingly, so is partisanship.
One of the harder, I mean hardest, things to do in life is to bow down to someone whom you don't respect. Black people in this country have done this along with many others for a terribly long time. And yet . . . the imperfect system was all this country had and it was captured to it. After all, the white majority was afraid of how to manage suppressed people set free. Because the white majority understood something about its own nature: to attack when given the chance. Surprise! Black people and people of color, generally speaking, just want to enjoy freedom for freedom sake—a generation or several without someone fighting to steer us and tell us what we want/need to do for ourselves. That is, people of color in the United States simply want to 'breathe' freedom and liberty from its top to its bottom the way white people do it by far and large.
And to be clear, I have great respect for all really great white people who eventually came to the rescue and salvation of my and other people of color. Without you, none of what is possible today for people of color would be so in this land. We strive to grow together with you in every endeavor because YOU cared to allow, aid, agree it be so. As for those who fight people of color assimilation-of any color and any tribe-I, we, wish you collectively just desserts to be determined when, where, and how.
Yet one more thing: To be truly free in the United States similar to a white majority means blacks can be liberals, progressives, and even conservative without someone mislabeling it: 'plantation-living' (there)!
In history of world, not having slaves is a relatively new thing
Ignorance is no longer bliss. Slavery and racism are social constructs that a mature world grew out of and the hope is once and for all. Enlightenment brings its own rewards!
BTW, the white majority, those who hated and wanted to keep oppression of slaves, blacks, others, in place came up with all sorts of demonizations, classifications, and substandard beliefs for which to persuade themselves (delude themselves) into thinking the groups could not live without 'intervention' by white 'patriarchs.' BTW, women were given this same type of treatment too. Because you have to condition and recondition people (brainwash them generationally and societally) to keep them 'knowing' their place.
Blacks could not have been too "childlike" since by the time mentioned there had been blacks sufficiently sophisticated to get themselves elected to congressional seats!
It's clear that the "white Southerners" were deliberately sabotaging and taking every advantage of their status and positioning in the majority to 'stop up, ' obfuscate, confuse, and remove blacks from succeeding alongside themselves in the south.
Blacks owed their slave masters nothing, not even for their freedom and liberty, because the majority of southern "gentlemen" fought to keep blacks as property and substandard citizens in the new republic.
Lawfully, a majority of white southerners disenfranchised blacks through poll taxation, literacy tests, and so forth. Question is this: Were any southern whites required to pay poll taxation, pass literacy tests, and,/or those so forths mentioned!