Cartwright on Negros [pp. 49-63]

1852.]`Gartwright on Negroes. 49
ART. 111.-CARTWRIGHT ON NEGROES.
1.Report on the Diseases and Physical Peculiarities of the
Negro race. By SAMUEL A. CARTWRTGllT, M.D., Chair man of the Committee appointed by the Medical As sociation of Louisiana to report on the above subject.
New-Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, for May,
1851.
2.The Diseases and Physical Peculkrities of Uze INegro
Race. By SAMUEL A. CARTwRIGllT, M.D. New-Or leans Medical and Surgical Journal, for July, 1851,
and Fenner's Southern Medical Reports, Vol. IL, p.
421.
3.The Diseases and Physicat Peculiarities of Ote Negro
Race. By SAMUEL A. CARTwRIGET, M.D. New-Or
leans Medical and Surgical Journal, for November,
1851.
THE diversities which mark the various races of man,
as manifested alike in their physical and intellectual
nature, have long attracted the attention of philosophers,
and been the subject upon which many of the ablest pens
have been employed, in elucidating and enforcing the opposing views which have divided them. On the one hand,
it is contended that these diversities are innate and contemporaneous with his creation; on the other, it is as
strenuously urged that all men are the descendants of one
pair, and that the differences observed between the races
are but the result of the various circumstances in which
they have been placed. We are somewhat in doubt under
which of these banners we shall range the author before
us, for we find him at different times battling under both,
thongh in the true spirit of knight~errantry he is generally found combating on the side of weakness. lIe is a firm
believer in the descent of all men fi'om one pair, yet he
somewhat inconsistently regards the differences observed
between the Negro and Caucasian as specific, physiologi~
eal distinctions, rendering even the medical practice employed with the one altogether inapplicable to the other.
If, however, his mind oscillates between the opposite attractions of this vexed question, it is well fixed upon others
of much interest and importance, his very singular views
on which we propose now to pass in review, for the en NEW SERIE5~ vOL. vI.-No. 11 4