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Donald Triplett was autism’s “case 1”
- dkga 3y agoI really appreciate that the town embraced and protected Don. May he rest in peace.
- htag 3y agoGrunya Sukhareva was studying (and published about, including in English) what we would now consider Autism in the 1920s. Perhaps it is because she was a woman, or because she was a Soviet, but histories often gives this credit to Leo Kanner or partial credit to Hans Asperger. I understand this is an obituary, but it does no one a service to indicate Donald Triplett was the first person to be treated for Autism.
- morelisp 3y agoThere is a subtle but critical distinction in medicine between describing a cluster of symptoms and diagnosing a new condition. AIUI Sukhareva did the former and Kanner (also citing Sukhareva in later publications) the latter. In particular, I don't think anyone is claiming > the first person to be treated for Autism. (Which depending on how you approach the question must either have been thousands of years before this, or could not happen until after Kanner proposed its existence). Rather the article is quite explicit, > The first man diagnosed as autistic
- benatkin 3y ago"case 1" is in quotes here and it says diagnosed, not treated. It doesn't make the claim you're suggesting.
- candiodari 3y agoIndeed, one might even say the description on wikipedia clearly indicates he fared far better than many kids that did get treatment, even though they had much less symptoms than this guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Triplett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Triplett
- BaudouinVH 3y agoAspie here. "treat" autism ? There is no treatment, only ways to adapt.
- romwell 3y agoAnd accommodate. Sometimes it's not us who should 'adapt'. (MFW when learning that "strong sense of justice" was pathologized as a symptom of a disorder by allistics)
- coldtea 3y agoBeyond some point even kindness can be a pathology.
- solumunus 3y agoLong ago there were probably (horrific) “treatments”. Lobotomy, etc.
- coldtea 3y agoThere are several treatments. CBT is one, there are some drugs that are given, and of course there is always psychoterapy. Doesn't matter if those "treat the symptoms", they're still treatments.
- 7thaccount 3y agoWas autism super rare historically? Surely there were plenty of cases over the centuries?
- guerrilla 3y agoI wonder about this too but there are people who definitely seem to have been autistic, e.g. Kant, so it can't have been that extremely rare.
- jimmytidey 3y agoBecause of his regular schedule?
- guerrilla 3y agoQuoting Quora of all things here but: > As autistic myself and student of philosophy, I’d say: probably, yes. I’ve read books that contain testimonials from Kant’s students and collegues. He showed ASD traits such as: (emotional and almost pathological) attachment to very strict routines; inability to control irritability and stress; inability to focus properly in certain situations (a famous example was given by his students: one day at a lesson he got stressed and refused to continue his speech because he felt unable to concentrate due to a missing button on a student’s jacket); he admitted to feel the inability to tell lies, even if for good purposes; in his writings he excuses many times for not being able to be clear about what he meant because he had an hard time putting himself in the reader’s shoes; he was described as socially akward and indifferent to social norms and costumes (famous was is dated and old-fashioned way of dressing), and to social relationships. We can’t of course be sure about Kant being autistic, but there is a possibility. His "regular schedule" was more than that... It was a very detailed and strict routine which he was extremely attached to. I think his way of thinking so abstractly and also being unable to summarize himself are also things that resonate for me.
- jimmytidey 3y agoOK - I see there is a pretty strong case here. One of the most astonishing Kant facts I've read (I've no idea how this could be verified) is that despite the sea being an hour away Königsberg, where he lived his whole life, he never felt the need to go and see the sea.
- dang 3y agoRelated: Donald Grey Triplett: The first boy diagnosed as autistic - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944335 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10944335 - Jan 2016 (16 comments)
- MollyRealized 3y agohttps://archive.is/20230708014417/https://www.economist.com/obituary/2023/07/06/donald-triplett-was-autisms-case-1 https://archive.is/20230708014417/https://www.economist.com/...
- jimt1234 3y agoAs the article mentions, Donald was featured in a documentary called "In A Different Key". I highly recommend it. Very informative about autism in general, the good, the bad, and everything in between.
- DangerousPie 3y agoThe Economist's obituary section is usually well worth the read, and this is a nice example. You can also listen to it through their free Intelligence podcast.
- getpost 3y agoAnn Wroe is the editor of the obituary section. I read her book on Pontius Pilate, inspired by Ryan Holiday's recommendation, and I enjoyed it. "This book was so overwhelmingly good that I could only read a couple pages at a time. How on earth did Wroe manage to produce such a rich and fascinating, 432-page book about a guy for which the historical record is not more than a couple artifacts and inscriptions? I don’t know–but that’s what makes it a masterwork. What so captivated me about this book is that although it is of course about the most seminal moment of the Christian world, it is happening inside the Roman world–the world of Seneca, literally. Seneca’s brother is in this book (he adjudicates a case involving St. Paul). Luciliius, who Seneca is writing his famous letters to, has the same job in a different province as Pontius. And by the way, that’s the most radical thing about this book: That you get to look at Pontius Pilate, the man who sentenced Christ to death, as a guy with a job. Did he do it well? How did it go so sideways? He said several times that he did not think Christ was guilty…he tried several times to get out of sentencing him to be crucified…yet in the end, he relented and did what he knew was wrong. What can that teach us? This was one of the most interesting and creative books I’ve read in a very long time. Wow." https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/ann-wroe/ https://mediadirectory.economist.com/people/ann-wroe/
- stefantalpalaru 3y ago[dead]
- faeriechangling 3y ago[flagged]
- crtified 3y agoI'm interested in the etymology, and the detailed reasoning behind the choice of term "autism". Based on what I've read, I consider it to be an imperfect terminology, not just because of its inconsistent, broad brush and un-nuanced application, but because its a term borrowed from an earlier use, in which it was coined for an entirely different purpose. Common information (including quotes in this article) mention the Greek roots of the word - "from Greek autos ‘self’ + -ism". One source [0] states : "The term autism (from the Greek autos, meaning “self”) was coined in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, who used it to describe withdrawal into one’s inner world, a phenomenon he observed in individuals with schizophrenia. The use of the word autism to describe the condition as it is known today originated in 1943, when Austrian-born American psychiatrist Leo Kanner [of the HN article we're currently discussing] distinguished the disorder from schizophrenia." One might infer (correctly or not) that the etymology is principally based around a particular focus upon 'the self'. One short step from 'selfish'. Not the most flattering classification. Not one that I particularly enjoy, personally. An opinion piece [1] alternatively states : "When I looked at the prefix and suffix of the word combined, I found that the word “autism,” in its purest form, means “a state of being oneself.” And indeed, to interpret the term in that latter manner is reasonable, hopeful, and not inaccurate, but it isn't a targeted first-principles classification as such. All of which underlies the fact that, despite being classified as somewhere on the autism spectrum - and fully agreeing that, yes, I have some degree of minority condition or traits - if I'm ever asked outright "so, what is it, then?", I still have no concise answer. The term itself certainly holds little useful information, either for me, or the majority of people I have to interact with. We need better and more nuanced classifications to become common parlance. Preferably (in reference to Asperger) not naming them after founding physicians, then later deciding that negative cultural associations veto the terminology. And while I'm here shouting at clouds, I wouldn't mind if web browsers didn't consider "neurodiverse" to be a spelling error, in 2023. /annoying rant [0] https://www.britannica.com/science/autism https://www.britannica.com/science/autism [1] https://www.jewishboston.com/read/etymology-of-the-word-autism/ https://www.jewishboston.com/read/etymology-of-the-word-auti...
- stavros 3y agoFor what it's worth, "autism" in Greek doesn't signify anything close to selfishness (that's "egoism"). It signifies, fairly congruously with the original definition, a withdrawal into one's self.
- dumdumchan 3y agoSurprised he lived so long. Maybe because he was a celebrity so he received good care. Level 3s have an average lifespan of 30-40 years.
- coldtea 3y agoThis includes things like suicide. In this case, however "he returned to his supportive hometown, where he worked for 65 years at a local bank that was partially owned by his father."
- kristianp 3y ago"And when they span the boy would..." This seems wrong to me. Past tense of "spin" is "spun".
- foogazi 3y agoHad to read that three times to understand the things were not spanning anything
- defrost 3y agoOxford English has two past tenses for spin: spin, v. (spɪn) Pa. tense spun, span. As a commonwealth english speaker for six decades it reads fine to me. But he loved making things—blocks, pans, ashtrays, anything at all—spin. And when they span the boy would, as the psychiatrist’s report observed, jump up and down “in ecstasy”. "And as they spun the boy would .." | "And as they span the boy would .." also parses.
- ralferoo 3y agoI've never really had any cause to think about this before, but both past tense forms seem natural to me, and I think I use them both. I'm from the UK, if that helps. I was trying to think of examples when I'd use each one, and it felt to me that I'd use spun if someone spun another object, and span if it was themselves that had been doing the spinning, so e.g. "I span around" (I turned around quickly) vs "I spun the crank" (I caused the crank to spin). That said, I can also provide counter-examples: "I span the gyroscope" and "I spun around" also both sound completely natural to me, just that I think that I personally would use the other word in both cases.
- dragonwriter 3y ago“Spun” and “span” are both past tense forms of “spin”, but “span” is both archaic and singular, and so would be an odd choice in any current writing, and a disagreement in number where, as here, it is used with a plural subject.
- Thorrez 3y ago
- kristianp 3y agoThe New York Times had a nice obituary of him too, which I found heart-warming at the time: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/18/obituaries/donald-triplett-dead.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/18/obituaries/donald-triplet... http://archive.is/a0s9K http://archive.is/a0s9K
- ulrischa 3y agoAgain full of prejudices this article