The article talked about Billy who suffered with autism. He lived in a time when there was no medical terminology for the disease but people referred to autistic individuals as “idiots”. I think an interesting point to be made here is how far society has come in medical naming from slang.

Another autistic individual that was mentioned in the article was The Wild Boy of Aveyron who was found in the French forest who was a medical anomaly in the late 18th century.

Autism was around before there was even a term for the disability.