In addition to identifying drapetomania, Cartwright prescribed a remedy. His feeling was that with "proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented".

In the case of slaves "sulky and dissatisfied without cause" – a warning sign of imminent flight – Cartwright prescribed "whipping the devil out of them" as a "preventative measure". As a remedy for this "disease", doctors also made running a physical impossibility by prescribing the removal of both big toes.

Drapetomania was a conjectural mental illness that, in 1851, American physician Samuel A. Cartwright hypothesized as the cause of black slaves fleeing captivity. It has since been debunked as pseudoscience and part of the edifice of scientific racism.