The concept of "autism" is widely believed to have been first proposed by Leo Kanner in his 1943 article, Autistic Disturbances Of Affective Contact.
But did Kanner steal the idea? That's the question raised in a provocative paper by Nick Chown: ‘History and First Descriptions’ of Autism: A response to Michael Fitzgerald. The piece stems from a debate between Chown and Irish autism expert Michael Fitzgerald, who first made the accusation in a book chapter.
On the evidence presented, I don't think there's good reason to believe that Kanner did "steal" autism, and Chown doesn't seem convinced either. But there's an interesting story here anyway.
Fitzgerald says that in 1938, Hans Asperger - of Asperger's Syndrome fame - gave a series of lectures in Vienna. These were published in a Vienna journal called Wiener Klinischen Wochenzeitschrift as an article called "Das psychisch abnorme kind" ("The mentally abnormal child").
In this ...
