ABSTRACT
The history of attitudes towards people with disabilities, or indeed towards any individuals regarded as 'different', is far from honourable.
As late as 1815, if a report presented to the House of Commons is to be believed, the hospital of Bethlehem exhibited lunatics for a penny, every Sunday. The annual revenue from these exhibitions amounted to almost >£400; which suggests the astonishingly high number of 96,000 visits a year. In France, the excursion to Bicetre and the display of the insane remained until the Revolution one of the Sunday distractions of the Left Bank bourgeoisie. Mirabeau reports in his Observations d}un voyageur anglais that the madmen of Bicetre were shown
'like curious animals, to the first simpleton willing to pay a coin' (Foucault, 1997: 68).
