Dr. Samuel Cartwright

In 1851, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a prominent Virginia-born physician and one of the leading authorities in his time on the medical care of Negroes, identified two mental disorders peculiar to slaves. Drapetomania, or the disease causing Negroes to run away, was noted as a condition "unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers." 

Dr. Cartwright observed, "The cause in most cases that induces the Negro to run away from service is such a disease of the mind as in any other species of alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule."

Dr. Cartwright also diagnosed Dysaethesia Aethiopica, or "hebetude of the mind and obtuse sensibility of the body, a disease peculiar to Negroes called by overseers-Rascality. " Dysethesia Aethiopica differed from other species of mental disease since physical signs and lesions accompanied it.