Drapetomania

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Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863)

Drapetomania (Gr. Δραπέτης, drapétes , "escaped" + μανία, manía , " delusion ") referred to the urge of slaves to flee from captivity in the 19th century and was considered a mental illness . The American doctor Samuel A. Cartwright coined the term in 1851. The description of drapetomania is now considered an example of racially based pseudoscience and racism in medicine, as well as an occasion for criticism of psychiatry .

history

In his essay Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race (1851), the doctor Samuel A. Cartwright described - in addition to other "slave diseases " such as " Dysaesthesia aethiopica ", the pathological laziness - for the first time the drapetomania as "disease causing negroes to run away" and possible preventive measures.

Preventive measures consisted of recognizing “symptoms” such as dissatisfaction in good time and either eliminating their causes or “driving them out” through punishment.

The Brockhaus- Jahrbuch zum Conversations-Lexikon picked up the term and Cartwright's publication in 1862:

“There are often cases of escape for which no immediate motive can be found, because the slave is treated well, well nourished and not overburdened by work [...]. This fact is often brought up to show the ingratitude and corruption of the African race. But I would like to suspect, if no other reason can be found, that it is the natural instinct of freedom in a person that is capricious like the wild instincts of domestic animals and birds. Yes, the learned Dr. Cartwright of the University of Louisiana suggests that slaves experience a peculiar form of mental disturbance which he calls drapetomania, which, like the disease of some cats, manifests itself in an irresistible urge to run away. In a writing that is very respected in the south, that doctor [...] assures that, with strict use of medical advice, this annoying mania of running away can be completely prevented. The symptoms and the usual empirical cure for the disease are as follows: Before [slaves] go away, unless they were frightened, they become grumpy and dissatisfied. The cause of this morose and dissatisfaction must be removed, otherwise they will flee [...]. But if there is no cause, the advice of those who have the most experience in drapetomania is to 'whip' the mania ... "

The term was used until the 1960s to pathologize the behavior of absentee youth.

criticism

The invention of the clinical picture of drapetomania with the pathologization of the natural urge for freedom is today an example of racially motivated pseudoscience .

It also serves as the basis for a general criticism of psychiatry , for example in Thomas Szasz's work Mental Illness - A Modern Myth? . The drapetomania is placed in a row with other pseudoscientific historical diagnoses such as "hysteria" .

See also

literature

  • Samuel A. Cartwright (1851): Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the Negro Race , in: The New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal , pp. 691-715 (May).
    • Reprinted in DeBow's Review XI (1851). Available at Google Books and excerpted at PBS.org .
    • Reprinted in Arthur Caplan, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., and James McCartney, eds, Concepts of Health and Disease in Medicine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Boston: Addison-Wesley, 1980).
    • Reprinted in Arthur L. Caplan, James J. McCartney, Dominic A. Sisti, eds, Health, Disease, and Illness: Concepts in Medicine (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press , 2004) ISBN 1-58901-014-0

Research literature

  • Phoenix Savage-Wiseman: Drapetomania . In: Rodriguez, Junius P .: Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion . Westport (CT) 2007, pp. 171-172.

Web links

Wiktionary: Drapetomania  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Samuel A. Cartwright : Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race . In: DeBow's Review . XI, 1851. Retrieved August 2, 2014.
  2. ↑ NN: The slave system in the United States of North America. Second part. The conditions in the American slave states. In: Our time. Yearbook for the Conversations Lexicon. Volume 6. Leipzig 1862: Brockhaus, pp. 101-137. Here p. 105 ( Memento of the original from August 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.books.google.de
  3. ^ Rolf Göppel (2000): Truants from School - Truants from Life? Notes on the conference. In: Institutional and social disintegration processes in school-age adolescents. Münster u. a .: Lit, pp. 416-438. Here p. 422.
  4. ↑ See also Hörmann, Georg (2008): Behavioral deviations between medicalization and therapy . In: Hörmann, Georg / Korner, Wilhelm (Ed.): Introduction to educational counseling. Stuttgart, pp. 51-63. Here p. 54.
  5. ↑ Schmechtel, Corinna (2012): Psychiatry and the gender system - gender identity and psychiatry. In: Allex, Anne (Ed.): Stop Trans * -Pathologisierung 2012: Berlin contributions to an international campaign. Berlin, pp. 29-35. Here p. 29