Samuel A . Cartwright Samuel Adolphus Cartwright ( November 3 , 1793 – May 2 , 1863 ) was a physician who practiced in Mississippi and Louisiana in the antebellum United States . During the American Civil War he joined the Confederate States of America and was assigned the responsibility of improving sanitary conditions in the camps about Vicksburg , Mississippi , and Port Hudson , Louisiana . He was honored for his investigations into yellow fever and Asiatic cholera . Cartwright was also considered to have been an antebellum authority on the health problems of African Americans , but that work has since been discredited . Biography . Cartwright was born in Fairfax County , Virginia , to Mr . and Mrs . John S . Cartwright . Prior to 1812 , he began his medical training as an apprentice to Dr . John Brewer . Thereafter , he was apprenticed to Dr . Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia . He also attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School . Cartwright was at one time a surgeon under General ( later U . S . President ) Andrew Jackson . He practiced medicine in Huntsville , Alabama ( Madison County ) , then Natchez , Mississippi ( Adams County ) , and finally New Orleans , where he relocated in 1858 . Dr . Cartwright married the former Mary Wren in 1825 , and they had at least one child . He died in Jackson , the Mississippi state capital , two months before the surrender of Vicksburg to the forces of General Ulysses S . Grant . Slavery . Even though he had studied under the abolitionist Dr . Rush in Philadelphia , Cartwright contributed ideas and literature to those southerners who defended slavery . He is now most well known for describing a condition he called " drapetomania " , or the desire to flee from servitude . According to Cartwright , drapetomania is a mental disorder akin to alienation [ madness ] . He said that slaves should be kept in a submissive state and treated like children , with " care , kindness , attention , and humanity to prevent and cure them from running away . " If they nonetheless became dissatisfied with their condition , they should be whipped as a prevention against running away . In describing his theory and cure for drapetomania , Cartwright relied on passages of scripture dealing with slavery . Cartwright also described another disorder , " " Dysaesthesia aethiopica " " , a disease " affecting both mind and body . " Cartwright used his theory to explain the apparent 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 . " In the antebellum period , southerners largely considered blacks to be racially inferior to whites . They sought " scientific proof " for their argument to counter the " human rights " claims of the abolitionists . Cartwright ’ s explanation concentrated on psychological issues of African Americans . In his " Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race " , Cartwright viewed blacks as people largely incapable of performing certain duties . His arguments were in line with those of such pro - slavery defenders as Thomas Roderick Dew of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg , Virginia , and James D . B . DeBow , a southern magazine publisher . Cartwright contributed some fourteen articles to " DeBow ' s Review " between 1851 and 1862 , primarily on sanitary conditions .