Samuel A. Cartwright
Who was Samuel A. Cartwright?
American physician (1793–1863)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Samuel A. Cartwright (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Samuel Adolphus Cartwright, born on November 3, 1793, in Fairfax County, Virginia, became one of the most controversial medical figures in pre-Civil War America. He studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, then one of the country's leading institutions. After completing his education, he moved to the Deep South, where he practiced medicine in Mississippi and Louisiana, becoming known as a significant regional doctor and writer on medical issues.
Cartwright gained notoriety for his strong views on race, medicine, and slavery. He claimed African Americans were biologically different from white Americans and used this idea to create false scientific theories that supported slavery. His most infamous contribution was inventing a mental illness he called drapetomania in 1851, which he said made enslaved people run away. He presented this as a medical condition needing treatment, turning the understandable wish for freedom into a supposed health problem. He also fabricated another condition, dysaesthesia aethiopica, which he alleged affected free Black people, making them uninterested in work.
Apart from his racial pseudoscience, Cartwright was a prolific writer and public speaker on medical topics. He opposed germ theory, refusing to accept the growing scientific belief that germs cause disease, which was gaining acceptance in Europe. Instead, he offered alternative ideas based on outdated theories. His work was published in medical journals and Southern publications, where he had significant influence among those who agreed with his views on slavery and Southern society.
Cartwright also worked as a military medical officer during parts of his career and participated in medical groups in the South. He was part of a larger Southern effort to provide scientific and moral backing for the slave system during intense national conflict. His work was mentioned in discussions on slavery and race both in the United States and internationally, making him a significant, though troubling, figure in American medical history.
Samuel Adolphus Cartwright died on May 2, 1863, in Jackson, Mississippi, during the Civil War, which eventually ended the system he supported throughout his career. His life and work serve as a warning of how scientific authority can be misused to support systemic oppression, and his fabricated diagnoses have since been completely dismissed by the medical and scientific community.
Before Fame
Samuel Adolphus Cartwright grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the young United States was still shaping its social and political systems. The Southern planter class was deeply committed to continuing slavery, and intellectual life in the region increasingly defended it against growing abolitionist pressure. Cartwright pursued his medical education at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, becoming part of the early American medical elite when the profession was trying to establish itself.
After completing his education, Cartwright moved south, eventually setting up practice in Mississippi and Louisiana. The antebellum Deep South provided ambitious physicians opportunities to build reputations through clinical work and public intellectual engagement. Cartwright took advantage of these opportunities, gradually becoming a recognized voice in Southern medical circles. He aligned his professional identity closely with the political and social priorities of the slaveholding class, whose support and approval influenced his career.
Key Achievements
- Established a prominent medical practice across Mississippi and Louisiana, becoming a leading regional physician in the antebellum South
- Authored widely circulated medical and scientific writings that shaped Southern pro-slavery intellectual discourse in the mid-nineteenth century
- Gained national and international notoriety for his 1851 paper introducing the fabricated diagnoses of drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica
- Served as a military physician contributing to medical services in the American South
- Received medical training at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the foremost medical institutions in early America
Did You Know?
- 01.Cartwright coined the term 'drapetomania' in 1851, fabricating it as a clinical diagnosis to describe enslaved people who repeatedly attempted to escape, presenting their desire for freedom as a mental illness.
- 02.He invented a second false disease called 'dysaesthesia aethiopica,' which he claimed afflicted free Black people and manifested as a supposed insensitivity to pain and aversion to labor.
- 03.Despite being trained at one of America's leading medical schools, Cartwright publicly and repeatedly rejected germ theory as it was gaining scientific acceptance in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century.
- 04.His pseudoscientific writings were published in mainstream Southern medical journals of the period and were cited in pro-slavery political arguments during congressional debates over slavery.
- 05.Cartwright died in Jackson, Mississippi, in May 1863, just weeks after Union forces bombarded the city during the Vicksburg Campaign of the Civil War.