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Disability: A New HistoryDisability: A New History - Gallery

Images illustrating the history of disability in the 18th and 19th centuries

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Programme 2 "Miracle Cures" - A sign for pilgrims travelling to the Shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury

(Image source: Wellcome Library, London)

  • Programme 2 "Miracle Cures" - A woodcut showing Christ curing a deaf mute with his hands
  • Programme 2 "Miracle Cures" - A sign for pilgrims travelling to the Shrine of Saint Thomas of Canterbury
  • Programme 3 "Freaks and Entrepreneurs" - A 1724 self portrait by the artist Matthew Buchinger, who was born without arms or legs
  • Programme 3 "Freaks and Entrepreneurs" A show bill for Barnum and Bailey’s show – "a curious collection of freaks"
  • Programme 3 "Freaks and Entrepreneurs" - A man with a wooden leg plays the violin
  • Programme 3 "Freaks and Entrepreneurs" - A blind hurdy gurdy player and his son and two dancing dogs
  • Programme 3 "Freaks and Entrepreneurs" - A watercolour drawing of an old blind man holding a child, guided by his stick and dog
  • Programme 4 “Beauty and Deformity” - Society beauty, Lady Mary Wortley Montague
  • Programme 4 "Beauty and Deformity": A late 19th drawing in oil of a 16 year old girl showing the effects of congenital syphilis
  • Programme 4 "Beauty and Deformity": An 1885 drawing of a congenital deformity, titled "Elephant Man"
  • Programme 7 "Wooden Legs and Wheelchairs" - Two Chelsea Pensioners arm-in-arm, one with a wooden leg, the other with head wound
  • Programme 7 "Wooden Legs and Wheelchairs" - An etching by Isaac Cruikshank, c. 1791
  • Programme 8 "Sex and Marriage" - The wedding ceremony of two deaf people conducted in sign language

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