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History of Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral palsy should not be thought of as a new disorder. There has probably been children with cerebral palsy for as long as people have inhabited the earth. But is was not until 1861 when the medical profession started studying the disease as a distinct medical condition. It was in that year when an English Orthopedic surgeon, Dr. William John Little, published the first paper describing what became know as Little's disease, which described the neurological problems children have with spastic diplegia. In the late 1800s the term "cerebral palsy" came in to use. Sir William Osler, a British medical doctor is believed to have coined the term. An Austrian neurologist Dr. Sigmund Freud better know for his work in psychiatry published some of the earliest know medical papers on cerebral palsy. It is believed that prenatal risk factors play a least some role in in the majority of the cases of cerebral palsy today, but in the early years most cases were thought to be caused by obstetrical complications at birth. It was not till recently that the medical and educational lost there similarly erroneous ideas about the physical and mental capabilities of children with the disease. Because of these erroneous ideas that people had back then children with the disease were taken from there homes at an early age and put in mental institutions, thus taking away any chances they might have had to succeed in life. Because of this they had little or no opportunity for education, employment, or even socialization. To our benefit in the past few decades, information on the many facets of cerebral palsy has increased significantly. There is a greater desire to study cerebral palsy to determine its causes and more effective ways to treat it better in the future.
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