This might be a tad much for a trivia thread, but I'm hoping no-one minds given the theme.

The history of epilepsy in slave communities in the United States is a fascinating one, the study of which has offered valuable insights into a number of aspects of life in the antebellum south: the struggle for power between master and slave on the plantations, the conflict between the pro and anti slavery ideologies, the relationship between white planters and the wider community, contemporary attitudes to disease and disability, and the psychology of the white planter class.

In the nineteenth century, epilepsy was a condition that was both widely misunderstood and feared - it was associated with infirmity, uncontrollability and even insanity. Though there were constant efforts to better understand and treat it, contemporaries largely assumed epilepsy was a permanent, debilitating problem that required constant attention if the sufferer had any chance at a normal life. For the enslaved, this had obvious implications: a slave who could collapse into a seizure at any moment, and who might end up insane or otherwise infirm through their condition, could surely not be a particularly productive asset.

It had been understood for centuries that epileptic fits could be induced through serious trauma, whether through violence or over-work. Yet southern planters appear to have overwhelmingly rejected this understanding of the condition, even though they had no more convincing of an explanation for it - the economic function of slavery made overwork a fundamental component of it, and the complete social degradation of the enslaved made violence (both casual and institutionalised) one of the few effective means of ensuring the obedience and acquiescence of enslaved workers. Epilepsy was enough of a problem that it warranted the attention of the white planter class, but not nearly significant enough that they would be willing to adjust the conditions of slavery to prevent or ease it.

For southern physicians, this presented an interesting challenge. Many appear to have shared the interpretation of the planters in general, whilst others appear to have drawn tentative links between trauma and the development of fits - though they would never suggest that it was the result of abuse. The treatment and understanding of epileptic fits, and other disabilities brought on through the lifestyle of slaves, was an area of negotiation between physicians and planters. Both had an interest in ensuring that the condition was resolved (the planter to restore a slave to full economic worth; the physician for their pay, reputation and perhaps satisfaction with their own skills), but also a need to not question the legitimacy of the institution of slavery or its practices. Some conditions (particularly communicable diseases) could approached in very straight-forward ways because their causes and treatment did not undermine the institution; others, like epilepsy, had to be more carefully considered. Treating epilepsy after it appeared, rather than trying to prevent it, could also be a profitable pursuit - as a severe condition with a need for long-term assessment, physicians could justify charging more for its treatment. Due to the perceived consequences of epileptic fits for slave productivity, masters appear to have taken a particular interest in supervising its treatment, though in many cases slaves appear to have tried to treat the condition within their own communities as well.

Slaves themselves certainly seem to have understood the possible origins of epilepsy from violent abuse and over-work. There is no shortage of evidence of slaves being aware that fits could be induced as a result of violent abuse in particular, and certainly some slaves were fearful that abuse they had been or were to be subjected to might induce this terrifying condition in them. Epilepsy and the barbaric treatment that induced it were also used by abolition advocates an example of the horrific conditions slaves were kept in - the condition was terrifying for whites also at this time, and could be used a means by which slaves and their plight could be Humanised and made relatable.

Significantly, there is also evidence of slaves faking ecliptic symptoms as an act of resistance against their owners; a means of securing a measure of autonomy over their own bodies against the wishes of their masters, as well as potentially securing more favourable treatment for themselves (perhaps through less work, or most likely, by ensuring they would not be worth enough to sell on to someone else). White planters were aware of this practice and deeply troubled by it, and with physicians worked to try and determine ways in which 'fake' fits could be distinguished from legitimate ones.

I think this is a great example of how disability studies can enrich our understanding of all manner of aspects of historical inquiry. In this instance work on a single condition (or type of condition), epilepsy, has shed new light on a number of other established areas of investigation and enhanced our understanding of the slave and planter experiences.

This post is mostly based on a fantastic paper by Dea H. Boster ("An "Epeleptick" Bondswoman: Fits, Slavery and Power in the Antebellum South", Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83, no. 2 (2009): 271 - 301), which I would recommend to anyone who has access. Recently, Boster published her doctoral thesis on the broader theme of disability in slave communities as a book titled African American Slavery and Disability: Bodies, Property and Power in the Antebellum South, 1800 - 1860; I haven't read it myself yet, but I understand that it's a solid, insightful piece of work.

EDIT: Words are hard. :(

While this isn't really a full study of disability in the ancient world(and kind of out of my field), the Sumerian poem Enki and Ninmah may be of some interest. In the poem Enki and Ninmah create people and basically have a dialogue about the various fates of their creations, including the disabled: A man with palsy is decreed to be a servant of the king, a blind man is decreed to be a musician(we can confirm from our extant texts that musicians were indeed often blind), the parapalegic is decreed to be a silversmith, and so on. So what we see here is that in this context disability isn't presented as something that excludes someone from having a function in society but rather as one of the various means that the gods can decree someone's function in society. In this case it seems that disability studies could also be an important contribution to our study of court life in the ancient world since it would help us understand the musicians at the royal court better.

Incidentally, it seems that someone has gone to the trouble of compiling a bibliography of deafness in Hittite texts, of all things; enterprising historians of disability studies with an interest in the ancient near east may do well to take note here:

http://www.independentliving.org/files/miles200809.pdf

This is a very minor thing, but since it's trivia day, here's a piece of trivia: one thing I've always felt really bad about is that there was a king in the 13th century in Sweden that is today universally referred to as Erik läspe och halte, which roughly translates to "Erik the lisping and the limping". The fact that he did, indeed, lisp and limp is apparently confirmed by a very early Swedish chronicle called the Chronicle of Erik (a different Erik), though don't ask me to say for sure: the chronicle is in Old Swedish, and I'm not entirely sure I properly understood that part (my Old Swedish sucks, apparently).

He's also basically famous for nothing except two things: his nickname and the fact that he was the king that directly preceded Birger Jarl, one of the most important regents in Swedish history. This means that every year, a whole new batch of school-children will hear his name and snigger at how stupid it is, before swiftly moving on to the person that actually matters. It's been almost 800 years guys, maybe we should cut him some slack?

I mean, old Swedish kings had such cool names! There's Knut Långe (Knut the Tall), Magnus Ladulås (Magnus Barnlock), Erik Segersäll (Erik the Victorious), Håkan Röde (Håkan the Red), Blot-Sweyn (Sweyn the Sacrificer, though it kinda looks like "Blood Sven" in modern Swedish) and Olof Skötkonung (Olof the "Sköt"-king, but no one quite knows what "sköt" means). Poor Erik really did draw the short straw in the King-nicknaming game.

When I was a kid growing up in Nashville, there was a blind blues guitarist, who was a famous fixture, usually playing on Church Street. Unlike the Blues Brothers stereotype, he did not wear sunglasses; which made me rather uncomfortable. This discomfort with the disabled could be a whole topic of discussion in of itself ( my father being one of the psychologists who helped empty insane asylums in the 1950's because too many of the patients were there simply because they made normal people uncomfortable). It wasn't until I read James Squires excellent Secrets of the Hopewell Box that I learned the guitarist felt he had to show he was actually blind, and unable to do any other work.