The Medical Association of Louisiana charged Cartwright with investigating "the diseases and physical peculiarities of the negro race". His report was delivered as a speech at its annual meeting on March 12, 1851, and published in its journal. Furthermore, Cartwright described the condition of 'genu fluxit', in which slaves exacted awe and reverence towards their master. The condition could be lost though if masters were to treat their slaves overly harshly and deny basic privileges. Rather than just arguing to treat slaves negatively overall, he desired to treat slaves somewhere in the middle, as one should treat a child. Cartwright also invented another 'disorder',
dysaesthesia aethiopica, a disease "affecting both mind and body." Cartwright used his theory to explain the perceived lack of
work ethic among slaves. Dysaesthesia aethiopica, "called by overseers 'rascality'," was characterized by partial insensitivity of the skin and "so great a
hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep." Other symptoms included "lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms." According to Cartwright, dysaesthesia aethiopica was "much more prevalent among
free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc." — indeed, according to Cartwright, "nearly all [free negroes] are more or less afflicted with it, that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of them." == Cultural depictions ==