drapetomania

To prevent the full-blown development of drapetomania, exhibited by the actual running away of the slave, whipping is recommended as medical therapy; in a revealing allusion to its historical origins, the treatment is called "whipping the devil out of them."

One of these is a supposed form of mental disease, termed by him "Drapetomania, which, like a malady that cats are liable to, manifests itself by an irrestrainable propensity to run away."