Medical History and Disability History

The relationship between medical history and disability history is both antagonistic and mutually-­‐ constitutive. Eager to convey dignity upon disabled people by de-­‐medicalizing it, our field has missed some valuable intellectual and methodological opportunities. Rooted in the mind-­‐body dichotomy that has shaped Western thought for three centuries, the fields of history of medicine and disability history share some key assumptions even as we try to escape them. This becomes especially apparent when we scrutinize the terms "medical" and "social model" which have become a careless shorthand used by many in our field to frame our teaching and research. These terms, their application, and their implications must be subjected to careful historical analysis. Understanding their origins as dating back much further than the past thirty years will allow us to rethink major historical questions and methods, and will ultimately allow us to explore much of what we have come to take for granted. If we think of these two models as part and parcel of the same intellectual system grounded in Western Enlightenment thinking rather than as oppositional tropes where medicine serves as villain, it could open new doors for the field of disability history.