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The Doctor Who Diagnosed Freedom as Madness: Drapetomania Unmasked
The Doctor Who Diagnosed Freedom as Madness: Drapetomania Unmasked
Freedom labeled a mental illness by a licensed physician in 1851: Samuel A. Cartwright named the urge to escape "drapetomania," tied it to Greek etymology, and published treatment advice including whipping; how did a medical paper become a tool of control and endure into 1914? What happens when science outfits ideology in a white coat?
In this episode, we recount the publication, circulation, and long shadow of Cartwright's paper and its appearance in De Bow's Review and later medical dictionaries, and we follow the unexpected…
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