Depending on what social media circle you run in, subreddits you’re subscribed to, or career path you’re on, you may notice that all of a sudden in recent years, everyone has some sort of disability they’re talking about. So where did all of these people come from? As with most other things, once you think about it logically it all makes sense.
Let’s talk about your medical history
Let’s start easy. Once upon a time, the common cold was a death sentence. And in many parts of the world and for certain people (like the elderly or those or are immunocompromised), it still is. While the common cold dates back even as far as 3000 BC, its cause wasn’t known to us until 1950. That’s a relatively short time of history — there are many people who are still alive who were born well before that.
There were many great ways to help with colds and coughs in the olden days — and most of them involved cocaine, morphine, heroin, or all the above. Even chloroform was a popular cough prevention — because nothing keeps you from coughing more than just passing the fuck out. Bayer, known for discovering aspirin, also discovered diacetylmorphine… heroin. Which was made from boiling down morphine. And in 1895, this was a kick-ass cold remedy (it wasn’t banned until 1924, after an “unpredictable” addiction crisis).
Laudanum was another popular cure-all of the time. From colds to aches and pains to insomnia, even to fussy babies. And, to no one’s surprise, its main active ingredient is opium. While very strictly regulated, laudanum is still being prescribed today… to treat diarrhea. As someone with Crohn’s Disease, my doctors have yet to try this one on me. But I’m not gunna lie — I’d be open to it. How do I approach this one? “Hey doc, the Imodium just isn’t cutting it – got anything stronger?” Hmmm…
The 1900s served a wide variety of discoveries that plagued us for centuries — tetanus, penicillin (as an antibiotic), insulin, and of course, typhoid and tuberculosis. The discovery of penicillin in particular created a land-slide of treatments to a wide variety of infections. People had accidentally stumbled upon some cures or preventions, like using honey (still a popular natural antibiotic). Funny thing, the word “antibiotic.” Literally meaning “destructive to micro-organisms.” Even though these micro-organisms have always existed, we didn’t quite have a word for combatting them until 1894.
These diseases (and in some rare cases, the cures) always existed, we just didn’t always have words for them. In some cases, the diseases create new strains either due to adaption or due to the introduction of an outside source. Some have always had a variety of strains, but we didn’t have the ability to distinguish between the two (or three… or four…) until advancements in medical science were discovered. And we’re still not done. We’re still mistreating individuals whose symptoms aren’t traditional, some diseases are still going unnoticed, and others are being misdiagnosed altogether. My grandma lived with “uterine cancer” for 30 years until she was re-diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease in the 90s. By then, the Crohn’s was so far advanced, she had to be promptly fitted for a colostomy bag. Whoopsie!
The anatomy of you and me
History is speckled with attempts to learn human anatomy, from doctors and even to artists (like Leonardo da Vinci whose fascination with human anatomy turned him into a grave robber). In the 1800s, grave-robbing was actually a business in London. This was a result of the 1823 Judgement of Death Act (1823 JDA), which allowed judges to use their own discretion when dolling out the death penalty. While it was intended to reduce the amount of death penalty charges, it would later be known as the “Bloody Code.”
During this time, it was illegal for medical schools to dissect bodies and could only use those who had been condemned to death by the courts. And for a brief time, the 1823 JDA saw a reduction in those sentenced to death with drastically reduced the number of bodies medical school saw. Being the very resourceful race we are, we found other means — namely, grave robbing. Schools would pay folks for bringing in a corpse for their students to dissect – no questions asked. This, of course, led to the Burke and Hare murder spree (for a compressed history, watch Thoughty2’s Grave-robbing YouTube video). As a result of this murder spree, the infant states of America began passing anatomy laws in the 1930s that allowed medical schools to use any unclaimed bodies as teaching and learning tools. This was an attempt to avoid their own grave-robbing scandal. However, it wasn’t until 1968 that the United States passed the Uniform Anatomy Gift Act (UAGA) which allowed people to have their own bodies donated to science after death. This is how most schools get cadavers now.
God forbid we get some answers
The church and medical care have an… interesting history. On the one hand, churches have been a sanctuary for some with unknown illnesses. The Bible has a lot to say about treating those with illnesses (mostly with “thoughts and prayers”). However, it is often implied that people of the church should be helping others, be they sick or needy. But, as usual, people take what they want from The Bible and conveniently ignore the rest in favor of blind ignorance (and whatever will line their pockets).
The Church being in power was a huge reason why it took us so long to make huge medical advancements. And, as usual, women were on the primary ass-end of this deal. While also being afflicted by the diseases of the day, they had to deal with ignorant diagnoses such as hysteria and gyromania (literally, a woman who liked to twirl and dance). Gyromania was treated with surgically cutting into the calves to keep the woman from movingas such. And while the Church had no problem with the surgery, they were extremely vocal about being anti-anesthesia. This also included any sort of pain management during childbirth. According to the Church, women were intended to suffer. And boy, did they ever!
The Church was also the reason our grave-robbing cadaver black market was created. It was due to the Church’s influence that anatomical exploration was so restricted to begin with. By allowing schools to only use the bodies of people who were put to death, their intention was for this to be an additional desecration, a lack of dying with dignity.
To this day, “The Church” still opposes a lot of medical treatments and it’s not uncommon for children of fanatically religious parents to die from preventable diseases (according to the National Library of Medicine, at least 172 kids died from faith healing between 1975-1995; it’s speculated that about 10 kids still die from faith healing every year). The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s tore the Church apart as individual pastors refused to care for those damned gays and their sinful butt-stuff and many letters of anti-discrimination were issued by the Church. These letters compared gay folks to lepers and as Jesus cared for them, so must they exhibit care and compassion for homosexuals (but we don’t need a historical document to look around us now and be well aware of the hypocritical and discriminatory ignorance uttered by most religious folks).
What does this have to do with disabilities?
Diseases and disabilities have literally always existed and people have always had them – we just haven’t always had knowledge or names for them. Advancements in medical science are hit with hurdle after hurdle and we have a long history of mistreating ailments simply due to our own ignorance as a society. Due to modern science (and the gradual decline of religious influence), the gaps are gradually reducing in width; BUT, they still exist. We are still treating impairments in ways that will probably be considered barbaric within 100 years. In the 90s, laparoscopic appendectomies became commonplace which shed a poor light on previous practices.
The spread of knowledge has also contributed to awareness. Newspapers made folks more aware of epidemics on a wide scale, but the Internet has spread awareness of inflictions on an individual basis which creates more pieces that put together a broader picture. Not only do patients get to connect and realize they are not the only ones, but doctors and medical researchers from all over the world can collaborate, compare notes, and come to conclusions much faster than they were able to previously. This is why, in the last 30 years, people have “suddenly” been diagnosed with one disability or another — awareness. It would require an entire series of blog posts to discuss the history of mental illnesses, such as autism which was originally thought to be an early sign of schizophrenia (and another to discuss the “vaccines cause autism” hoax, a barbaric experiment done by religious anti-vaxxer Dr. Andrew Wakefield in the 90s littered with child abuse that roughly 25% of Americans still believe, despite it being debunked hundreds of times).
So if you’re on social media and scoffing at someone talking about being neurodiverse or discussing the challenges of their disability, wondering why suddenly everyone has a disability these days, you may want to consider which part of history you’re on. The side that is dedicated to the discovery and expansion of the human condition, or the ableist side that believes there’s nothing left to be discovered and remains willfully ignorant of scientific discovery (or alternatively believes thoughts and prayers cure cancer and diseases are the results of sin). As history shows, medical scientists and doctors haven’t always had the best answers depending on what was available to them, they’ve at least tried to explain why a woman didn’t deserve to be burned at the stake for dancing. In short, it’s not that “everyone suddenly has a disability now,” we’ve just figured out the words (and diagnoses) for disabilities people have always had.
For more delightful insights on barbaric medical treatments throughout history, I highly encourage you to listen to the podcast Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine. We have made so many stumbles throughout medical history, it would be impossible to go over them all in a single blog post. And they’re all equally important to remember to stay humble as a species and to remember we will always be more ignorant today than we will be tomorrow.