I had written that Pope & Hudson's $1000 challenge to find a case of repressed memory before 1800 was conceptually flawed. I offered two counter-examples, autism and Parkinson's disease. These, I boldly asserted, were unknown before 1800, but this did not demonstrate that they were romantic notions rather than scientifically-valid conditions.
On 9 Mar 2006 at 9:49, Don Allen wrote: >I would challenge your assertion that little evidence of Autism or > Parkinson's exist in the historical literature. The now archaic > use of the term natural (as in a Natural Childe) while generally > refering to a mentally handicap would have been applied to children > with > Autism. The term "Palsy" (or Palsie) would have described > those with Parkinson's. Now if I were handing out $1000 for cases of pre-1800 autism or Parkinson's disease, I would want considerably more than that before I parted with the money. Note that Pope & Hudson are very specific concerning what a case of pre-1800 repressed memory must include. I too would be very picky. For autism, the case must be clearly distinguishable from mental handicap, and "palsy" is too vague and general a description to be sure it refers to Parkinson's. In general, it's always difficult to tell for sure from old historical descriptions what someone had. For example, what did Napoleon die of? Was it stomach cancer or arsenic poisoning (Lugli et al, 2005)? As I mentioned, perhaps the best candidate for historically early autism is the Wild Boy, but even that one is on shaky ground (and I don't mean palsy), not to mention that it only dates back to 1801. No thousand bucks for you, Don! Stephen Lugli A, Lugli AK, Horcic M. (2005).Napoleon's autopsy: new perspectives. Human Pathology, 36(4):320-4. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://faculty.frostburg.edu/psyc/southerly/tips/index.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
