Methodology
The disability subcorpus
The disability filter combines concept-tag matches with a text lexicon to surface letters relevant to historical disability studies. This page documents exactly what is included.
What the disability filter captures
A letter is flagged "disability-relevant" if it matches either of two layers:
Layer 1 — Concept tags. The Glasgow editors tagged medical conditions and symptoms throughout the corpus. We select a subset of tagged concepts that are disability-adjacent. A letter is flagged if any of its tagged concepts match these patterns (case-insensitive substring match on the concept label):
palsy, palsied, paralysis, apoplexy, blind, deaf, dumb, mute, lame, lameness, cripple, epilepsy, falling sickness, fits, contracted/contraction of, imbecility, idiocy, derangement, madness, infirmity, chronic rheumatism.
Layer 2 — Text lexicon. Some letters discuss disability without tagged concepts. A text search for these terms catches additional letters:
blind, blindness, deaf, deafness, dumb, lame, lameness, cripple, crippled, palsy, palsied, paralysis, paralytic, apoplexy, apoplectic, epileptic, epilepsy, falling sickness, contracted, infirm, infirmity, weakness of limbs.
Limitations
"Disability" as a unified category is largely anachronistic for the 18th century. The filter is deliberately broad: some flagged letters will discuss conditions that modern readers would not consider disabilities (e.g., "fits" in the context of menstrual complaints, "contracted" in a legal sense). The concept tagging was built for medical-history questions, not disability studies; some genuinely relevant letters may lack appropriate tags. This filter should be understood as an editorial starting point, not a scholarly consensus. The full term lists are published here for transparency so users can judge the curation for themselves.