Joanne Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> According to today's interview, autism did not
> exist prior to the invention in the 1930s of
> THIMEROSAL. As this preservative was used in
> humans, autism appeared. In third-world
> countries, where we now export this material,
> autism epidemics are appearing. Autism,
> apparently, is simply a form mercury poisoning.
>
>

[www.naar.org]
National Alliance for Autism Research

"Throughout history, people have probably lived with what we know today as autism spectrum disorders. Some of the earliest published descriptions of behavior that resemble autism date back to the 18th century.

The term autism was, for years, only used in some circles of psychiatrists and psychologists. It is believed to have been first introduced around 1911 by noted Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who used the term to describe an individual's exclusion of the outside world and virtual withdrawal from social life. The words "autistic" and "autism" are developed from the Greek word "autos" meaning "self."

Autism was first described as a specific condition by Dr. Leo Kanner, of Baltimore, Md., who published his famous paper on the disorder in 1943. In 1944, Dr. Hans Asperger, of Vienna, Austria, published another famous paper that first described a similar condition that later became known as Asperger Syndrome. These landmark papers featured the first theoretical attempts to explain these complex disorders"


Doug Weller

Director The Hall of Ma'at
Doug's Skeptical Archaeology site::
[www.ramtops.co.uk]