especial depravity of the African race. I should suspect it to be, if it cannot be otherwise accounted for, the natural instinct of freedom in a man, working out capriciously, as the wild instincts of domesticated beasts and birds sometimes do.
But the learned Dr. Cartwright, of the University of Louisiana, believes that slaves are subject to a peculiar form of mental disease, termed by him Drapetomania, which, like a malady that cats are liable to, manifests itself by an irrestrainable propensity to run away; and in a work on the diseases of negroes, highly esteemed at the South for its patriotism and erudition, he advises planters of the proper preventive and curative measures to be taken for it.
He asserts that, "with the advantage of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice of running away, that many negroes have, can be almost entirely prevented." Its symptoms and the usual empirical practice on the plantations are described: "Before negroes run away, unless they are frightened or panic-struck, they become sulky and dissatisfied. The cause of this sulkiness and dissatisfaction should be inquired into and removed, or they are apt to run away or fall into the negro consumption." When sulky or dissatisfied without cause, the experience of those having most practice with drapetomania, the Doctor thinks, has been in favour of "whipping them out of it." It is vulgarly called, "whipping the devil out of them," he afterwards informs us.
Another droll sort of "indisposition," thought to be peculiar to the slaves, and which must greatly affect their value, as compared with free labourers, is described by Dr. Cartwright, as follows:—
"Dysæsthesia Æthiopica, or Hebetude of Mind and Obtuse Sensibility
of Body. * * * From the careless movements of the individuals affected
with this complaint, they are apt to do much mischief, which appears as if
ntentional, but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind and insensibility
