(Aeon) – The convergence of singular talent and profound disability confounded scientists eager to place humans into neat categories

To use the language of the 19th century, how could a person be at once both a ‘genius’ and an ‘idiot’? The savant challenged conventional understandings of how talent was manifested, and who could manifest it, and at the same time upset notions of who might be classed as an ‘idiot’. In the scheme of how intelligence was understood then, the savant was at best otherworldly and at worst a monstrosity.

The historian Patrick McDonagh points out that ‘idiocy’ was a highly ambiguous medical term that was nonetheless widely accepted. Perhaps, in part, because it was a boundaried category that fulfilled an important social-symbolic function: namely, it offered a contrast against which modern individuals could define themselves as rational and intelligent, reinforcing their claims to respect and social authority. It also meant that people like that 11-year-old boy who was fascinated with numbers but was nonetheless considered an ‘idiot’ – in the medical parlance of the day – created a contradiction that continues to have implications today. (Read More)