🧠 Drapetomania (Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds)

• What it was: A supposed mental illness that caused enslaved Africans to run away from slavery.
• Coined by: Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 (Louisiana physician)
• Symptoms: A “desire to flee captivity” 🙄
• Treatment: Whippings, and being made to feel “content” with enslavement.

It pathologized a completely rational human response—wanting to be free—and turned it into a “disease” in order to justify slavery.

Fast forward a century point five.

UAMS held a man against his will for two weeks. Much of the time he was bound to a narrow bed. All of the time he was plied with enough sedatives to kill a man.

Doctors including but not limited to Mary Kimbrough, Benjamin L. Davis and Joseph Margolick demanded that deciding to refuse medical treatment was a sign of incapacity to make a medical decision.

The patient repeatedly attempted to leave AUA (Against Unsolicited Advice). The doctors who draw salaries in excess of $500,000 per year choreographed the continual battery and physical restraint meant to cure the man from his attempts at escape. If patients leave, revenues fall, and those sweet paychecks are harder to support.

He made it out alive, but just barely. He was left deaf in one ear from the head bashing. (Imaging at entry showed no problem in that ear.) His sodium level was dangerously low. But within days at home, his sodium went back to normal. Sadly, the doctors he chose to consult after leaving UAMS said there is no cure for the disruption of the oscillators in his left ear.

He filed a claim at the Arkansas Claims Commission and hopes an attorney will contact him with an offer of representation in a companion suit against the doctors and other key conspirators. Send a message to bohemian_books@yahoo.com if you are capable and interested. This is not medical malpractice. It is false imprisonment, battery, Clery rape, conspiracy, with spoliation of evidence and should also lead to criminal convictions for Clery Law violations and obstruction of justice.