Search

During the Nazi era "euthanasia" of the disabled and sick was introduced with the founding of the "Reich's Commission for the Scientific Assessment of Hereditary and Genetically Determined Serious Suffering" August 1939 on 18th. The task of this commission was to organize the killing of physically and mentally disabled children in so-called "Specialized Children's Departments". In the existing literature on the killing of sick children and adolescents, reports of the "official child-euthanasia", organized by the Reich's Commission, predominate. However, independently from the Reich's Commission, many children and adolescents were murdered in the programme of adult "euthanasia". This paper will focus on the latter neglected group of victims, taking the example of the psychiatric sanatorium "Ueckermünde". A large number of participants shared responsibility, during the time of National Socialism, for the murder of disabled and sick children. Various medical specialties such as paediatrics, genetics, gynaecology, administration, general practice, psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry were involved.

The Scandinavian countries have been among the leading countries with regard to integration into society for persons with disabilities. This article focuses on two intimately related questions concerning the reform: 1) How did the normalization principle, as governmental policy, intend to improve the living-situation for people with disabilities? 2) How was the reform experienced by some disabled persons who attended compulsory school during its introduction? Our sources are: a) central government documents and reports concerning integration of mobility disabled persons in Norway and Sweden; b) 40 life history interviews with mobility disabled persons in Scandinavia born between 1955 and 1965. The interviews are theme centered upon experiences in education and work.

Al-Jāhiz, an Arab writer and philosopher of the ninth century C.E., one of the most brilliant intellectuals of the Abbasid period, suggested in his work "Kitāb al-Bursān wa'l-'urjān wa'l-umyān wa'l-hulan" ("The Book of the lepers, lame, blind, and cross-eyed") that disease and physical imperfections should not be considered to be social stigma, but rather signs of special divine blessings. Cripples and sick persons, in his opinion, received spiritual compensation from G-d. This idea may not seem at first glance to belong to medieval Islamic tradition. This paper tries to analyze its place in that culture and its relation to other views on disease accepted there. I will especially try to analyze the correlation between piety and disease: Was it specific to this case or characteristic of the society. The problem of the association of disease and piety and divine favor, the problems of the moral implications of disease in general is certainly a vast one. This study is restricted to some of the ethical conceptions connected with illness in medieval Moslem society, including the religious minorities which were in a sense an integral part of that society.

This study deals with the care taken through Turkish history to protect and shelter the disabled orphans, widows, crippled and the aged, etc. In the Seljukian and Ottoman periods there were different foundations which shouldered the duty and functioned as almhouses. Some of these foundations had houses for sheltering the disabled and the homeless, according to those quoted in the trust of deeds. These institiutions were "Dār-al rahā" (almhouse); Tāb-khāne" and "Imāret" (almshouse and soup kitchen for the poor), "Caravanserai" (inns), "Musāfir-khāne" (public guest house for travelers); "Dār-al ziyāfe" (temporary boarding house and kitchen); "Dār-al shifā" (hospital) and "Tekye" or "Zāviye" (dervish lodges), etc. ...

This paper discusses federal legislation relating to persons with disabilities and it divides into 13 areas. Several areas of legislation, such as education and basic education, have a long history beginning with World War I. Laws related to other areas, such as federal support for developing technology, have been adopted only within the past 5 years. The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (Public Law 101-336), which guarantees civil rights to Americans with disabilities, has five titles, and each is summarized. Although the ADA provides for Americans with disabilities to be included in American society, it has some major limitations, including the lack of an affirmative action requirement and of provisions for the education and training of persons with disabilities so that they can qualify for employment. Several of the federal laws related to persons with disabilities have affected the field of occupational therapy either favorably or adversely. The conclusion is drawn that occupational therapists need to be alert to pending legislation to promote the role of occupational therapy in serving persons with disabilities.

This paper presents the basic philosophies that have influenced the development of social policy affecting the disabled. These philosophies include utilitarianism, humanitarianism, and human rights. It is suggested that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 is grounded in the human rights philosophy. Under the Act, disabled individuals are treated as an oppressed group who have been denied basic constitutional rights. The Americans With Disabilities Act is considered to be the "emancipation proclamation for the disabled."

The fundamentals of rehabilitation in the former GDR are described with particular reference to legal aspects. Interlinking of rehabilitation measures (medical, educational, occupational, social) was achieved by organisational structures on regional level (local rehabilitation centres, local rehabilitation committees) and by involving all levels of society, including employers (all the big companies worked on a nationalized basis). Difficulties are pointed out that resulted from political and ideological prejudices (children and adolescents not amenable to school education) and from inadequate financial and material resources.

The New Jersey Dept. of Education has proposed a new direction for interpreting the "Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975" (Public Law 94-142). If implemented, a new and broader scope of addressing learning and/or behavior and health problems for the school-aged child will be provided. In this article, the special education process in New Jersey is analyzed, reflecting on political, economic, and social movements that affected past and present legislation. The effects of the new proposal on students, families, school personnel, and community resources are emphasized. Role implications for the school nurse in formulating, interpreting, and managing the child with disability in school are provided.

The oldest known private accident insurance is recorded in the maritime law of Wisby of 1541. Defoe is the first to propose a compensation scale for loss of limbs in the 17th century. It is taken over in a modified character by all insurance companies being founded in Europe and North America since 1850. The structure of the present insurance conditions originates in the conditions of 1920. Since then the loss of the right and left upper limb is rated equally. The compensation scale is changed again in 1961, the loss of extremities is valued higher and the loss of sense of smelling and tasting is considered.

Particular attention is given to social and regional aspects in this report on the development of special care facilities for handicapped children, infant and child mortality in Mecklenburg, and an analysis of their causes. The restricted opportunities available for influencing the relevant conditions and for introducing prophylactic measures are described. The establishment and development of medical facilities for treating sick children in Mecklenburg are outlined, special emphasis being placed on the hospitals at Ludwigslust, the importance of Schwerin's Anna Hospital and their facilities for hospital, surgical and outpatient treatment of children.

Paleopathological analyses of skeletal remains have provided significant information about diet and health in prehistoric populations. A number of individuals have been recovered whose remains show evidence of impairments that would have precluded "normal" functioning, resulting in a disability. The most famous example is Shanidar I; more recent discoveries include the Romito 2 dwarf from Italy and a boy with spina bifida from the Windover site in Florida. These finds have been interpreted by some writers as evidence for compassion and "moral decency" among the other members of the community, who would have had to support these nonproductive individuals. However, these interpretations are based on a number of implicit assumptions: about the number of nonproductive members normally present in any population, about the abilities of disabled individuals to contribute to society, about the treatment of disabled individuals by other members of the group, and about the "moral rightness" of facilitating the survival of a disabled individual under all circumstances. These assumptions are not justified by the evidence from the archeological record or by reference to ethnographic analogy. A tendency to focus on physical traits as the sole measure of productive ability, images of Rousseau's "noble savage" transported to the past, and unexamined beliefs about the disabled in modern societies have influenced these archeological interpretations. We are not justified in drawing conclusions either about the quality of life for disabled individuals in the past or about the motives or attitudes of the rest of the community from skeletal evidence of physical impairment.

Given the profound structural changes of the first industrial revolution, physically disabled people, just like blind, deaf or epileptic children, had come to be confronted with disastrous living conditions in the large cities. Based on a sense of joint responsibility, the German Society for Cripple Care (today: German Society for Rehabilitation of the Disabled) was founded already in 1909, which, in the 80 years of its existence, has both considerably influenced pertinent legislation and herself been influenced in terms of constitution, membership and issues dealt with by the broadening of the rehabilitation philosophy. The call for clinic, school and vocational training under one roof had been the beginning of the rehabilitation team. The subjects dealt with at the Society's conferences over the last two decades have included numerous topics that in the meantime have attained socio-political relevancy, a fact that underlines the pacesetting role of non-profit, voluntary organizations in our social welfare state, but in the international network as well.

The responses of 92 Jewish/Israeli students in the health professions in Israel were studied in the context of a projected future situation where the subjects would be working as physicians/psychologists/social workers, first in a developing country somewhere in Africa, and then, in the second experimental scenario, at a well-known treatment institution in the center of Israel. A successive series of contraints were described that led to a scarcity of resources, in which context the health authorities considered it advisable first to limit and then to curtail the treatment of the severebly handicapped who could benefit least from treatment, and as the situation became more severe to implement a program of involuntary mass euthanasia. Although an eithical point of view would call for zero participation in the policies which would bring about dealths of patients, it had been predicted that as many as 15% of the subjects would agree to curtailing treatment, 5% to participate in planning involunary mass euthanasia, and 2% to execute the euthanasia themselves. However, the results were that in African 39% agreed to curtail treatment, 17% to plan euthanasia, and 11% them selves to terminate the patients' lives; in Israel the corresponding figures were 38%, 12%, and 9% - the differences between Africa and Israel were not significant. The study is seen as contributing to emerging knowledge (in the Milgram tradition) of the widespread availability of human beings to undertake policies which harm, hurt and kill other human beings when instructed to do so by a policy directive.

On the example of Lower Franconia, a predominantly rural region which has maintained its boundaries in both world wars, the author describes the historical development of services for disabled persons since the beginning of this century. Jakob Riedinger may justly be termed the father of cripple care in Lower Franconia, having initiated the establishment, in 1910, of the first vocational rehabilitation facility for physically disabled people in Würzburg. Starting out from the provision of vocational services, further developments in particular after the 2nd world war entailed a growing recognition of the psychosocial situation of disabled persons as the basis of rehabilitative action. Several facilities have hence been established for providing holistic, early services for the physically disabled, where educators, physiotherapists, occupational and speech therapists, social workers and psychologists are involved, along with the orthopaedic doctor, in the care of physically disabled children and youths.

Starting out from describing an orthopaedic institute with an orthopaedic-rehabilitative approach, established in 1780 by Venel in the Suisse canton of Waadt, a historical retrospective is given of the field of rehabilitation of the physically disabled, going back for some notable industrial and social medicine aspects to Graeco-Roman times. Reference is in particular made to the peculiarities of 19th century private, residential care, and the development of modern-day facilities for persons with a physical disability is outlined.

The Post Office occupational health service was established in 1855. Unique epidemiological records of sickness absence, medical retirements, and deaths for 90 years have been extracted from annual reports. The stability of the death rate is striking, but the male sickness absence series is consistent with three periods of roughly constant rates, viz 7.6, 10.0, and 13.1 calendar days a year with increases in level coinciding with the two world wars. By contrast with general experience, Post Office absence has not shown a rising trend in the past 30 years. An examination of the relation between medical retirement and sickness absence rates shows that a strongly negative correlation has reversed to be a strongly positive one since the second world war. The major changes in diagnostic causes of absence, retirements, and deaths are described.

Disability, like sickness, is not merely a physical condition, the state of an individual's body. It is also a collective status that relates the disabled person to Society. We analyze the evolution of this social status and we see how the perception of this phenomenon has changed over the ages. From this historical overview, the continuity as well as the discontinuity in changes can be observed, the changes that affect the institutions, values and conceptions having to do with disability.

A review is given of persons from history, culture and science, with locomotor disability, who by different reasons have become well known. It is shown that these persons, in spite of their disabilities, have reached prominent positions.

The legal bases for rehabilitation and integration of the physically disabled have developed from public welfare provisions, the beginnings of disability care having been part of public poor relief schemes. Ensueing developments range from cripple care programmes to today's efforts to establish a uniform social code, which is expected to benefit the individual disabled person by bringing about a marked simplification of the current legal and administrative situation. The extension of the scope of rehabilitative efforts, which since Bismarck's time had comprised nursing and institutional care in cases of physical and mental ailings within the framework of poor relief, had initially occurred outside Prussia by including education and vocational training for disabled people (the beginnings of "rehabilitation"). A more comprehensive approach to disability care in the sense of extended assistance was embodied in the Prussian cripple welfare act of 1920. The Federal Social Assistance Act of 1962, in the final analysis, had developed from this tradition. This 1962 act not only established a duty to provide public welfare but also gave those concerned a legal title to this kind of assistance.

Any educational theory, hence also of education of the physically disabled, combines both deduced constituents of educational philosophy and constituents generalized from educational science in an experiental sense. By combining normative goal concepts and empirical analysis, it has to lay the basis for responsible action on the part of the educator. These foundations of an educational theory for education of the physically disabled as an "action-oriented science" are considered in a discourse of the relationship between experience, theory, and practice. Several exemplary aspects are set forth, with an emphasis being placed on a historical science-critical reflection on the connection of scientific (pre-)-experience and (pre-scientific) theory formation. Concluding, the author points out the implications in view of intensifying the theory-practice-relation in the professional training for education of physically disabled persons.