ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors talks about disability and disabled persons with historical accounts and contemporary issues. Reponses of societies to disability as signifying of spiritual, moral, or religious impurity typically led to violence toward or exclusion of children and families. Greek religious beliefs emphasized that individuals with disabilities had immortal souls, so that their elimination from this life probably meant a more prompt reincarnation, a more pleasant prospect than lives of hardship as disabled and stigmatized individuals. This belief encouraged many parents to accept the custom as a blessing, and the best possible course of action for their children. Nomadic groups abandoned impaired members to survive, while later civilizations practiced infanticide of apparently impaired newborns out of pity, tradition, religion, or superstition. Over time, communities turned toward humanism and took up care of the individual as emblematic of the social good.
