Early History
Introduction
The history of impairment and disability, both in Scotland and globally, is the history of struggle against the Medical Model of Disability. This is the dominant model. Disabled people are seen as a problem to be “fixed” by medicine, surgery, therapy or special treatments. It becomes a personal tragedy when this does not happen. This powerful and pervasive view is reinforced in the news media, books, film, art and language. It is reflected in social policy and at every level of society.
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Prehistory
Evidence exists that shows that there were impaired individuals living in prehistoric subhuman prima...Read more


3100 BCE – 100 BCE Ancient Egyptians
Carvings in ancient Egyptian tombs depict dwarves as a Shaman and as the Keeper of the Royal Wardrob...Read more


2334 BCE – 1654 BCE Babylonians
Records from the ancient Babylonian civilization indicate that Semitic Chaldean seers kept a list of...Read more


1000 BCE – 600 CE Ancient and Classical Greece
Greco/Romano notions of ‘beauty’ and ‘physical perfection’ still dominate contemporary weste...Read more


800 BCE – 476 CE Ancient Rome
In Ancient Rome, children with impairments were drowned in the Tiber whilst people considered to be ...Read more


600 BCE – Celts Arrived in Scotland
Celtic societies were based around tribal structures and there were were distinct social classes in ...Read more


700 CE - Asylums
Asylums for people with mental health support needs are established by the Arabs inBaghdad,Fez (Moro...Read more


800 BCE – 63 BCE Old Testament
Some of the world’s earliest historical manuscripts, such as the books of the Old Testament, have ...Read more


500 BCE
The holy book of Hinduism, the Bhagavad-Gita, begins with the inquiry of the blind King Dhritaraasht...Read more


70 BCE - New Testament
The view of impaired people as charitable objects of pity are also rooted in early religious thinkin...Read more


200 BCE – 500 CE Jewish Talmud
In sections of the Talmud, it is suggested that disability is a holy state and a means of getting to...Read more


41 CE – 54 CE
The Roman Emperor Claudius was born into the heart of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In an age that des...Read more


129 CE
Galen’s influential writings on medicine remained the unchallenged authority for over a thousand y...Read more



300 CE
Bishop Nicholas opens a hostel for people with learning difficulties in southernTurkey...Read more


India
Composed around 3500 BCE, the Rig-Veda, an ancient sacred poem of India, is said to be the first wri...Read more


Samaria
In one Sumerian myth, the goddess Nammu creates humans out of clay. Afterwards, Sumerian deities hol...Read more


Hephaestus
Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and metal-working is one of the few instances of an ancient deity ...Read more


Africa
In the mythology of the Yoruba people of Nigeria, the sky god Olodumare sends his sons Obatala and O...Read more


Northern Europe
Impairment also plays an important part in Norse mythology. Balder, the sun-god, had a series of omi...Read more


Western Europe
Western European folklore and folk religions also mention changelings. A changeling is usually descr...Read more


Scotland and the Borders
In Scottish folklore, the children might be replacements for fairy children in the Tithe to Hell, an...Read more


Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages Formation of alms-houses, charitable foundations for the care of the poor, especia...Read more


1100 CE
Institutions for the quarantine of people with leprosy became prolific throughout Europe, these plac...Read more


1200 CE
The Belgian village of Gheel supports people with learning difficulties in family care settings, pro...Read more



1243 CE
St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh, is officially consecrated by the Bishop of St. Andrews. The mothe...Read more


1270 CE
Death of King Louis the Ninth of France. Louis is later canonized in 1297 for his commitment to the ...Read more


1280 CE
The foundation of St Leonard’s, York, one of the first and greatest medieval hospitals, housing 22...Read more



1329 CE
Death from leprosy of King Robert (Robert the Bruce) at Cardross, Dunbartonshire on 7 June 1329...Read more


1325 CE
The Venetian Republic founds the first national health service in Europe, and obliges licensed pract...Read more



1344 CE
A ‘Royal Ordinance’ decrees that lepers should leave the City of London and “betake themselves...Read more


1348 – 50 CE
The Black Death or Bubonic plague reaches Britain from Europe, killing a quarter of Scotland’s pop...Read more


1350 CE
The beginning of the Renaissance period of art and culture in Europe leads to a resurgence of the ob...Read more


1360 CE
Idiot cages are constructed in the centre of European towns as a way of keeping individuals with lea...Read more



1388 CE
An English statute gives a mandate to local officials to discriminate between the ‘deserving’ an...Read more


1405 CE
Report of a ‘Visitation’ enquiring into the deplorable state of affairs at Bethlem Hospital. The...Read more


1409 CE
Spain has been described as the cradle of humane psychiatry because of the treatment at asylums such...Read more



1432 CE
An Enactment in the Scottish Parliament restricts the movement of lepers in cities. Glasgow magist...Read more


1436 CE
Margery Kempe (c.1373-1438, dictates a book of her spiritual experiences) which shows how she went ?...Read more

1440 CE
Attitudes in rural Britain harden further towards the ‘sinful poor’. It is recognised that agric...Read more


1464 CE
Two examples taken from the Calendar of Patent Rolls for Edward 4th are of people being granted cust...Read more


1480 CE
Following the invention of the printing press, mass communication becomes much easier. Henry Tudor i...Read more


1489 CE
During a two hundred year period between 8 and 20 million people, mainly women are put to death acro...Read more


1494 CE
The Vagabonds and Beggars Act is passed in England. “Vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall b...Read more


1495 CE
Syphilis, possibly introduced from the new world breaks out amongst troops in Italy and rapidly spre...Read more



1501 CE
Birth of Girolamo Cardano, the first physician to recognize the ability of D/deaf people to reason....Read more


1505 CE
Incorporation of the Barber Surgeons of Edinburgh. A charter, the Seal of Cause, decrees “… that...Read more


1516 CE
“Utopia” by Thomas More is published (English translation in 1551). “But hospital patients get...Read more


1530 – 1540 CE
With the Dissolution of the Roman Catholic monasteries and hospitals by Henry VIII, large numbers of...Read more


1531 CE
Justices of the peace are ordered to issue a ‘licence to beg’ to the infirm poor, thus making be...Read more


1535 CE
The Poor Law Act requires that “all Governors of Shires, Cities, Towns, Hundreds, Hamlets and Pari...Read more


1538 CE
The City of London unsuccessfully petitions Henry VIII to give them five hospitals plus their endowm...Read more


1547 CE
In 1547, Henry VIII hands over to the city of London the Priory of St. Mary of Bethlehem (which beca...Read more


1551 CE
The 5th outbreak of fever and ‘sweating sickness’ (influenza) since 1485 kills thousands of peop...Read more


1552 CE
Parishes are ordered to register their poor; onus for the relief of the poor is placed on parish cou...Read more


1572 CE
The Poor Law Act make each parish responsible to provide for its own ‘aged, impotent and sick’ p...Read more



1575 CE
Licenciado Lasso, a Spanish lawyer, concludes that deaf people who learn to speak are no longer dumb...Read more


1579 CE
In Sicily 65 people, many of whom were believed to be associates of fairies, are put on trial for so...Read more



1590 CE
The first major witchcraft persecution in Scotland begins with the North Berwick witch trials when a...Read more


1593 CE
The Act for the Necessary Relief of Soldiers and Mariners requires that 'Every parish shall be charg...Read more


1594-98 CE
Intermittent famines, some associated with typhus and dysentery ('bloody flux'). 'People were starvi...Read more


1597 CE
Poor Law legislation in Scotland enables voluntary contributions via the Kirk to support the ‘aged...Read more


1598 CE
Poor Law Act: Every parish is required to appoint overseers of the poor to find work for the unemplo...Read more


1600 CE
One quarter of all children born in the 1600s die before the age of 10. Two thirds of this number di...Read more


1601 CE
The Poor Law makes economic provision for people dependent on charity, including disabled people....Read more


1604 CE
As leprosy begins to disappear the remaining colonies are converted to other uses and become filled ...Read more


1611 CE
Publication of the Authorised (King James) Bible with its influential portrayal of disabled people a...Read more


1613 CE
Death records are introduced – ‘That Bills of Mortality were appointed to be kept in Glasgow, th...Read more


1616 CE
Giovanni Bonifacio publishes a treatise discussing sign language, “Of The Art of Signs”....Read more


1621 CE
Publication of Robert Burton’s ‘The Anatomy of Melancholy. What it is with all the kinds, causes...Read more




1654 CE
In Glasgow, ‘The surgeons gave in a paper to the session offering their services in behalf of the ...Read more
