In the modern day, disabled people have access to a great choice of medical and mechanical aids to help them in their daily lives. From wheelchairs to scooters, to prosthetic limbs, to cochlear implants, the list goes on and on, science and technology have been on the path of researching to improve the difficult lives of the disabled community. Not only that, but the general society is becoming more and more inclusive, with legislation that prohibits discrimination and that makes the world more accessible through wheelchair ramps, disability restrooms, marked sidewalks, etc.
The future is bright for this community, but this has not been the case throughout history. The history of disabled people has been marked by intolerance, ambivalence, prejudice, societal fears and ignorance regarding disability. Taken in total, throughout the ages, people with disabilities have been submerged in hot water starved, burned, shunned and isolated, strangled, beaten, tortured. chained and caged, gassed, shot, sterilized, warehoused and sedated, hanged, and used as amusement.
This was not the truth universally. The views regarding disabled people varied, some cultures revered them and held them in high esteem, such as the Dahomeans of West Africa, where infants born with disabilities were believed to have been blessed by supernatural forces. In other parts of the world, disabled people were treated with kindness and a helping hand by entities such as the church and other nonprofit organizations. In medieval England, monasteries offered food, clothing and housing to the disabled, and built hospitals for their care.
This attitude towards the disabled community enabled medical and mechanical aids to be invented. There have been discovered manuscripts that contain images of dogs guiding blind people, similar to service dogs today. Limb prosthetics have been around for a great part of history and recently a skeleton was found that had a knife as a replacement for one hand, so the hook-handed pirates might not be far from the truth. Records of sign language are dated as far back as the 17th century. Moreover, eyeglasses, canes, and even wheelchairs were used by those who could afford them.
People also took care of each other, families taking care in general of their disabled members. Archaeological and anthropological skeletal finds suggest that people with spina bifida, a birth defect in which there is incomplete spine closing, lived during the Neolithic period, some even reaching adulthood. Evidence of disability has also been found during the Old Stone Age, with the remains of people with spina bifida being found as well as osteomyelitis, congenital hip dislocation, and spinal tuberculosis. As there is no evidence that adaptive aids existed in these periods of history, their survival was attributed to the care of the families and loved ones.
All in all, the history of disability has both light and darkness. One lesson we ought to carry with us is that no matter the general reception of disabled people, societies should find it within themselves to care for them, not discriminate against them, and to help ease their burdens.
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