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; institutionalization 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 conceptualized 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 bookprovides 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.