Do You Suffer from Rascality?

Diagnosis: Dysaethesia Aethiopica, also known as “rascality” Symptoms: Partial insensibility of the skin; dull intelligence; physical lesions; laziness Condition: Found only in those of African ancestry A prominent physician and medical scientist, Dr. Samuel Adolphus Cartwright, used his pea brain to identify this supposed ailment in the 1850s. He was called a national expert in Negro diseases. Once the Civil War started, he was even asked by President Jefferson Davis to serve as surgeon general of the Confederacy’s Department of the West. Clearly, his words carried weight in the Antebellum South. Dr. Cartwright believed if black or mixed people were ...