| And in a remarkable bit of societal blindness, the diagnosis of drapetomania was used to explain why black slaves would want to escape to freedom. |
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| In the 1850s, slaves running away or damaging white plantation owners' property were diagnosed with the created mental disorder drapetomania and dysaethesia aethiopis. |
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| Forbidding alcohol, eliminating visits to neighbors at night, and withholding adequate food, shelter, and clothing also were measures taken to prevent drapetomania. |
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| There is no record of Epictetus having suffered from drapetomania. |
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| Drapetomania was a psychiatric diagnosis for a slave who did not want to be a slave. |
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