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Physicians begin to describe the experience of Down Syndrome.

1866

The Story of Disability Justice
DCRJ
MED
SRA

Prior to this point, Western medicine largely views all forms of intellectual or developmental disabilities as being one in the same, calling them "idiocy" or "imbecility." In the late 1800s, scientific methodologies begin to make distinctions between different intellectual, neurological, and developmental disabilities. "English physician and advocate for people with intellectual disabilities, John Langdon Down, links a population with distinct physical characteristics to decreased intellectual ability and calls them 'mongoloid' (explaining their facial features were similar to those of the Mongolian people)" (GDSF).