Is there any way to historically consider the cultural severity on a disease or impairment? (specifically during the Roman Empire)
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I've focused on blind people status in 1st century, I hope it will help a bit.
According to Catherine Slater's article at Langdon Down Museum of Learning Disability, in the mentioned period (1st century):
Early Roman law gave power to the father to have absolute rights over his children. He could expose any female infant or a child of either sex who was deformed or disabled.
The details are provided in the work "Gynaecology" by Soranus of Ephesus, especially in the chapter entitled "How to recognise the Newborn that is worth rearing". Quoting the linked website further here's what Soranus wrote:
The child should be perfect in all its parts, limbs and senses and have passages that are not obstructed including the ears, nose, throat, urethra and anus.
This way I believe that at least children that were born blind could be killed or abandoned (whatever is closer to the definition of "exposure") by parents in full accordance with the law.
And the presence of such law gives a valuable hint that the status of such people in culture would be very low.
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