Invalidity

“ The woman in the situation I have described has probably a variety of symptoms on which her condition causes her to dwell. A great many of them are of little practical moment. If she is irresolute and weak, she yields where she should not, and finds for inactivity or for fears ample excuses in the state of her own feelings. An unwholesome crop of disabilities grows out of these conditions. It then becomes the business of her physician to tell her what is real, what is unreal, what must be respected, what must be overcome or fought. She has acquired within herself a host of enemies. ”

“ From these and many another supporting observation, easily and everywhere to be had, it is perfectly legitimate to conclude, beyond reasonable doubt, that mental pain and its resulting invalidism is quite naturally the necessary outcome of a great variety of causes, which may be contributed to, usually, by almost every influence that either bad heredity, accident, disease, wrong education, personal over-stress, or failure, or future uncertainty, may happen to afford. ”

“ There are those, also, of all ages, who are incapacitated for self-support and for service by disease, or by physical or mental defects such as bodily deformities, blindness, or feeble- mindedness. In addition, there are some who, though physically able to perform service, deliberately prey upon the community in one manner or another without giving anything in return. ”

“ Life on hard conditions is their lot; and as no chastening in immediate endurance is otherwise than grievous, these dear invalids have the tenderest claims on our ready help and affection. If they are precluded from all activity of either mind or body, the greater responsibility is laid on those around them who possess the blessing of health to cheer and lighten as much as possible the burden of their affliction. ”

“ If it affects the bread-winner of the family, how long will he or she be disabled, and how completely; what are the hopes of ultimate and complete recovery; will chronic invalidism follow; is it worth while in this particular disease to spend a great deal of money and time in trying to achieve a complete cure, or is cure so improbable and at best so incomplete that our resources can be expended more wisely in other directions? ”

“ This day-a wonderful, vigorous celebration of the progress and possibilities for equal opportunity-must also include an equally vigorous commitment to continue the fight. Now is the time to act on our understanding that having a physical or mental disability is a part of the human experience. ”

“ The opinions of both experts and non-experts should have weight according to their opportunities and qualifications for examination of the state of mind of the person whose sanity is in question. First of all will be the family, or the physician who has attended the patient through the disease which is supposed to have disabled his mind ”

“ And, above all, remember if you have a disease to keep the fact to yourself and to your doctor; no one else wants to hear about it, and it is interesting to no one else. If you become an invalid you can be both cheerful and useful, although I know how hateful—how truly hateful—it is to put up the once active feet, and cross the once busy hands, and simply listen to what we once used to do. ”

“ But it is none the less true that always some disorder results from excess or defect, that it influences every function, bodily and mental, and that it constitutes a lowering of the life for the time being. ”

“ Under the regulations applying to children, a person under 18 will be considered disabled if suffering from a Part A impairment listed for adults or its equivalent, as long as the disease's processes have a similar effect on adults and younger persons. ”

“ Recall to mind the rich men and women whom you have known; are not most of them invalids? A person of that class whose physical disabilities do not oblige him to take a periodical course of hygienic and medical treatment is as rare as is an invalid among the laboring classes. ”

“ The primary motivation for the inclusion of misperceptions of disabilities in the statutory definition was that "society's accumulated myths and fears about disability and diseases are as handicapping as are the physical limitations that flow from actual impairment." ”

“ Only those who have known the situation can fully appreciate the restraint and constraint involved in such chronic invalidism, not only for the one who bears, but perhaps still more for the one who must watch, and sympathize, and shield, and protect, and as far as possible keep off the pressure and strain of the crowding, noisy, bustling, indifferent world. ”

“ But, only consider that, for the last six years, I have been attacked by an incurable complaint, aggravated by the unskillful treatment of medical men, disappointed from year to year in the hope of relief, and at last obliged to submit to the endurance of an evil the cure of which may last perhaps for years, if it is practicable at all. Born with a lively, ardent disposition, susceptible to to the diversions of society, I was forced at an early age to renounce them, and to pass my life in seclusion. ”

“ If he find himself subject to any peculiar corporeal infirmity, hereditary tendency to disease, overbearing propensities towards indulgence, or excess, unbalanced passions, or morbid mental obliquity, he will be studiously solicitous, that the other party shall not be laboring under similar disqualifications. ”

“ There is no reference to nonmedical factors in this definition and no references to specific consequences that an impairment must or should produce. Furthermore, neither "comparable," "severity," nor the two words together are there or elsewhere defined in the Act, and their meaning is anything but clear. The severity of an impairment that disables an adult is measured by its effects on the ability to engage in gainful employment. ”

“ When a physician names an ailment, describing its symptoms and their danger, he has committed an unconscious offence against being, against his patient's happiness and liberty, and will make a sure job for himself, if not a fatal one for his patient. ”

“ Moreover, an invalid should never become absorbed in herself, in her treatment, her medicine, and the progress of her malady; having found her doctor to be trustworthy, she should do as he tells her, and after his visit she should utterly decline to speak of herself ”

“ Then, if invalidism is to be accepted, meet it bravely and serenely as may be; and if death, then approach it loftily, for no one dies with his work undone, and no just-minded person can wish to survive his service. ”

“ The Court noted that although an individual may have an impairment that does not in fact substantially limit a major life activity, the reactions of others may prove just as disabling. "Such an impairment might not diminish a person's physical or mental capabilities, but could nevertheless substantially limit that person's ability to work as a result of the negative reactions of others to the impairment." ”

“ THE FREEDOM OF ILL-HEALTH One of the greatest advantages of invalidism is that it frees us from petty obligations, unworthy pleasures, and meaningless conventions. The blessed freedom of ill-health is something few people appreciate ”

“ After twenty years of invalidism, I have been restored to perfect health of body and mind, and wholly by a strict obedience to the laws of health and happiness, which I now commend to your especial attention, with the hope and prayer that by obedience to them you may save yourselves and households from unspeakable future miseries. ”

“ To be most useful it seems evident, also, that the percentages must be chosen with regard to the sort of social care which it is anticipated would be justified for the particular degrees of deficiency. ”

“ She has made an admirable start toward a differential diagnosis of special defects in number work, language ability and other mental activities. The degree of special deficiency which results in social failure could be placed upon an objective basis, but the rarity of special deficiencies as compared with general deficiency will make this a slow task. In the meantime we may rely upon the mutual dependence of the organic processes as a point of view which emphasizes the common spread of deficiency to many activities. ”

“ And if physical deformity was thus enough to preserve his body until its allotted end, how much more would not moral and mental deformity avail!
A moral and mental deviation would be still more likely to condemn a man to that neglect from his fellows which is so conducive to our real welfare. ”

“ For purposes of this paragraph, a physical or mental impairment is an impairment that results from anatomical, physiological, or psychological abnormalities which are demonstrable by medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques." This statutory definition of disability was taken from Title II of the Social Security Act, 70 Stat. ”

“ It will, it is believed, be found, upon examination of the authorities, that wherever substantial mental suffering would be the natural and probable result of the act, there compensation for injury to feelings has been allowed, and that where no mental suffering would ordinarily result, or if resulting, would naturally be but trifling,and,being unaccompanied by visible signs of injury,would afford a wide scope for imaginative ills, there damages have been disallowed. ”

“ This evidence is introduced for the encouragement of an unfortunate class of invalids, for many of whom existence has ceased to possess any charms. The grateful manifestations which we have received from this class of sufferers have afforded us one of the greatest pleasures of our lives, and have alone been a rich remuneration for the diligent study and arduous labors devoted to the investigation of these diseases and to the perfecting of our peculiar and successful methods of treating them. ”

“ These discriminations are as radical as health and sickness, as distinct as physiology and pathology, and to confound them is as unnatural as to look for the beauties of health in the chamber of sickness. ”

“ But on the appearance of an illness or disorder, either in the body as a whole or in many of its parts, a contrary course should be taken, and every means used to nurse the body, or the part of it which is affected, and to spare it any effort; for what is ailing and debilitated cannot be hardened. ”

“ The English Mental Deficiency Act of 1913 included the following definition:—"Persons in whose case there exists from birth or from an early age mental defectiveness not amounting to imbecility, yet so pronounced that they require care, supervision, and control for their own protection or for the protection of others, or, in the case of children, that they, by reason of such defectiveness, appear to be permanently incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools." ”

“ There is no more engrossing study than to trace back through many a century of ancestors, the various—often conflicting—elements which go to make up the character of someone whose life (without the clue given by the history of his forbears) is often a strange contradiction. Unable to understand some disability which spoils an otherwise fine personality, one looks back and there is the explanation. One's finger rests on the raison d'être of this disability. ”

“ After having taken this view of the subject, which is the result of extensive experience in this department of the profession, and of diligent enquiry into the nature of the human mind; it appears to me, that the medical practitioner may safely and conscientiously infer unsoundness of mind, if such term be legally insisted on, whenever a morbid condition of intellect prevails, to an extent which deprives the mind of its natural and healthy offices, by producing [90] an incapacity or inability in the individual to conduct himself and manage his affairs. ”

“ And never, as all know, does ministering affection so abound as towards the injured. When injury and helplessness unite their claims, there is no end to the multitude of hearts that throng to defend and aid. They are far more than are needed; for few—extremely few—are those who venture or who like to send the enmity of public life into the retreats of privacy. Very rare, I believe, is the species of men who insult when all the world knows there can be no reply. Still, such cases are witnessed; and of their operation I have spoken.
The greater number of invalids are under no such liability ”

“ Hence, to those who are struggling with disease and pain, with ignorance and defect, with vice, and with crime, but for the most part too separately, it is time to say that all these four evils are capable of being viewed together, and largely even treated together. ”

“ He, being a human being like his fellows, must, of course, observe the same laws for the preservation of his general health as they, but just because he comes before the public, his case is peculiar, and he must, in addition, take special precautions to avoid every form of temporary or permanent disability. ”

“ An individual shall be considered to be disabled for purposes of this subchapter if he is unable to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than twelve months (or, in the case of a child under the age of 18, if he suffers from any medically determinable physical or mental impairment of comparable severity) . ”

“ We may, therefore, broadly conclude that the only circumstance, within the range of those by which persons of similar conditions of life are affected, that is capable of producing a marked effect on the character of adults, is illness or some accident which causes physical infirmity. ”