[Between fear and pity: some socio-historical aspects of disability].

Disability, like sickness, is not merely a physical condition, the state of an individual's body. It is also a collective status that relates the disabled person to Society. We analyze the evolution of this social status and we see how the perception of this phenomenon has changed over the ages. From this historical overview, the continuity as well as the discontinuity in changes can be observed, the changes that affect the institutions, values and conceptions having to do with disability.