Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction: Disabled Children – Contested Caring
- 1 Club Feet and Charity: Children at the House of Charity, Soho, 1848–1914
- 2 Insanity, Family and Community in Late-Victorian Britain
- 3 The Mixed Economy of Welfare and the Care of Sick and Disabled Children in the South Wales Coalfield, c. 1850–1950
- 4 The Question of Oralism and the Experiences of Deaf Children, 1880–1914
- 5 Exploring Patient Experience in an Australian Institution for Children with Learning Disabilities, 1887–1933
- 6 From Representation to Experience: Disability in the British Advice Literature for Parents, 1890–1980
- 7 Treating Children with Non-Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Sweden: Apelviken, c. 1900–30
- 8 Health Visiting and Disability Issues in England before 1948
- 9 Spanish Health Services and Polio Epidemics in the Twentieth Century: The ‘Discovery’ of a New Group of Disabled People, 1920–70
- 10 Cured by Kindness? Child Guidance Services during the Second World War
- 11 Education, Training and Social Competence: Special Education in Glasgow since 1945
- 12 Hyperactivity and American History, 1957–Present: Challenges to and Opportunities for Understanding
- Notes
- Index
9 - Spanish Health Services and Polio Epidemics in the Twentieth Century: The ‘Discovery’ of a New Group of Disabled People, 1920–70
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- Introduction: Disabled Children – Contested Caring
- 1 Club Feet and Charity: Children at the House of Charity, Soho, 1848–1914
- 2 Insanity, Family and Community in Late-Victorian Britain
- 3 The Mixed Economy of Welfare and the Care of Sick and Disabled Children in the South Wales Coalfield, c. 1850–1950
- 4 The Question of Oralism and the Experiences of Deaf Children, 1880–1914
- 5 Exploring Patient Experience in an Australian Institution for Children with Learning Disabilities, 1887–1933
- 6 From Representation to Experience: Disability in the British Advice Literature for Parents, 1890–1980
- 7 Treating Children with Non-Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Sweden: Apelviken, c. 1900–30
- 8 Health Visiting and Disability Issues in England before 1948
- 9 Spanish Health Services and Polio Epidemics in the Twentieth Century: The ‘Discovery’ of a New Group of Disabled People, 1920–70
- 10 Cured by Kindness? Child Guidance Services during the Second World War
- 11 Education, Training and Social Competence: Special Education in Glasgow since 1945
- 12 Hyperactivity and American History, 1957–Present: Challenges to and Opportunities for Understanding
- Notes
- Index
Summary
Introduction
On 19 April 2010, representatives of the Spanish federation of people affected by polio and its late effects (FEAPET) met with political leaders of the Spanish social security. The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss Article I of Royal Decree 1851/2009. This changed eligibility for early retirement in cases of disability in a way that disadvantaged some polio survivors. It was agreed to look into the possibility of retrospective reviews of cases where assessments had previously been inadequate (in the sense that no account was taken of the distal axonal regeneration of the motor neuron and neuronal loss due to the aging process of a damaged motor unit). To properly understand this issue, and the attention it has recently received in the Spanish media, we need to turn to historical analysis of polio in Spain and its social and cultural meaning in the context of both the history of childhood and disability studies. Health, disease and childcare provide paradigmatic case studies in modern history. The history of childhood in particular reveals the strategic character of health in the modern industrial world. Indeed, medical care of children is one of the elements defining the status of children in the contemporary period.
A study of poliomyelitis (polio), as it affected Spanish society, allows us to analyse a set of interesting problems for a better appreciation of the social, cultural and medical perspectives on children and youth in the twentieth century.
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- Information
- Disabled ChildrenContested Caring, 1850–1979, pp. 131 - 144Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014