David M. Turner - Social Histories of Disability and Deformity

Deformed and disabled bodies have been subject to a variety of responses throughout history: being seen as omens or prodigies; divine punishment for sin; freaks and curiosities; as inducing laughter, embarrassment or compassion; and as the subjects of disciplining initiatives, institutionalisation or medical and charitable care. Essays in this collection, written by an international set of contributors, provide a scholarly social history of disability: they explore changes in understandings of deformity and disability between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, and reveal the ways in which different societies have conceptualised the normal and the pathological.

The book provides an important contribution to the emerging field of disability history. Through a variety of case studies including: early modern birth defects, homosexuality, smallpox scarring, vaccination, orthopaedics, deaf education, eugenics, mental deficiency, and the experiences of psychologically scarred military veterans, this book provides new perspectives on the history of physical, sensory and intellectual anomaly. Examining changes over five centuries, it charts how disability was delineated from other forms of deformity and disfigurement by a clearer medical perspective. Essays shed light on the experiences of oppressed minorities often hidden from mainstream history, but also demonstrate the importance of discourses of disability and deformity as key cultural signifiers which disclose broader systems of power and authority, citizenship and exclusion.

The diverse nature of the material in this book will make it relevant to scholars interested in cultural, literary, social and political, as well as medical, history.

David M. Turner is Senior Lecturer in History at Swansea University. His most recent book is Fashioning Adultery: Gender, Sex and Civility in England 16601740 (2002). Kevin Stagg lectures in History at Cardiff University.

Edited by Joseph Melling

University of Exeter

and

Anne Borsay

University of Wales, Swansea, UK

The Society for the Social History of Medicine was founded in 1969, and exists to promote research into all aspects of the field, without regard to limitations of either time or place. In addition to this book series, the Society also organises a regular programme of conferences, and publishes an internationally-recognised journal, Social History of Medicine. The Society offers a range of benefits, including reduced-price admission to conferences and discounts on SSHM books, to its members. Individuals wishing to learn more about the Society are invited to contact the series editors through the publisher.

The Society took the decision to launch Studies in the Social History of Medicine, in association with Routledge, in 1989, in order to provide an outlet for some of the latest research in the field. Since that time, the series has expanded significantly under a number of series editors, and now includes both edited collections and monographs. Individuals wishing to submit proposals are invited to contact the series editors in the first instance.

1 Nutrition in Britain

Science, scientists and politics in the twentieth century

Edited by David F Smith

2 Migrants, Minorities and Health

Historical and contemporary studies

Edited by Lara Marks and Michael Worboys

3 From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency

Historical perspectives on people with learning disabilities

Edited by David Wright and Anne Digby

4 Midwives, Society and Childbirth

Debates and controversies in the modern period

Edited by Hilary Marland and Anne Marie Rafferty

5 Illness and Healing Alternatives in Western Europe

Edited by Marijke Gijswit-Hofstra, Hilary Maarland and Has de Waardt

6 Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 15001700

Edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham

7 The Locus of Care

Families, communities, institutions, and the provision of welfare since antiquity

Edited by Peregrine Horden and Richard Smith

8 Race, Science and Medicine, 17001960

Edited by Waltraud Ernst and Bernard Harris

9 Insanity, Institutions and Society, 18001914

Edited by Bill Forsythe and Joseph Melling

10 Food, Science, Policy and Regulation in the Twentieth Century

International and comparative perspectives

Edited by David F. Smith and Jim Phillips

11 Sex, Sin and Suffering

Venereal disease and European society since 1870

Edited by Roger Davidson and Lesley A. Hall

12 The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 191819

New perspectives

Edited by Howard Phillips and David Killingray

13 Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity, 18002000

Edited by Waltraud Ernst

14 Innovations in Health and Medicine

Diffusion and resistance in the twentieth century

Edited by Jenny Stanton

15 Contagion

Historical and cultural studies

Edited by Alison Bashford and Claire Hooker

16 Medicine, Health and the Public Sphere in Britain, 16002000

Edited by Steve Sturdy

17 Medicine and Colonial Identity

Edited by Mary P. Sutphen and Bridie Andrews

18 New Directions in Nursing History

Edited by Barbara E. Mortimer and Susan McGann

19 Medicine, the Market and Mass Media

Producing health in the twentieth century

Edited by Virginia Berridge and Kelly Loughlin

20 The Politics of Madness

The state, insanity and society in England, 18451914

Joseph Melling and Bill Forsythe

21 The Risks of Medical Innovation

Risk perception and assessment in historical context

Edited by Thomas Schlich and Ulrich Trhler

22 Mental Illness and Learning Disability Since 1850

Finding a place for mental disorder in the United Kingdom

Edited by Pamela Dale and Joseph Melling

23 Britain and the 191819 Influenza Pandemic

A dark epilogue

Niall Johnson

24 Financing Medicine

The British experience since 1750

Edited by Martin Gorsky and Sally Sheard

25 Social Histories of Disability and Deformity

Edited by David M. Turner and Kevin Stagg

Also available in Routledge studies in the social history of medicine series:

Reassessing Foucault

Power, medicine and the body

Edited by Colin Jones and Roy Porter

Edited by David M. Turner & Kevin Stagg

First published 2006

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2006 David M. Turner and Kevin Stagg for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors, their contribution

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.

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