J Autism Dev Disord DOI 10.1007/s10803-012-1529-5
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
‘History and First Descriptions’ of Autism: A response to Michael Fitzgerald Nick Chown
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract Letter to the editor in response to Michael Fitzgerald’s controversial allegation that one of the two pioneers of autism—Leo Kanner—may have been influenced by an earlier paper by the other autism pioneer— Hans Asperger—without acknowledging the debt, and that Kanner may even have been guilty of plagiarising Asperger. In correspondence, Professor Fitzgerald has suggested that I ‘‘consider doing my take on the matter’’. This is it. Keywords Academic ethics Asperger Asperger’s syndrome Autism Kanner
When reading Michael Fitzgerald’s chapter entitled ‘Autism: Asperger’s Syndrome—History and First Descriptions’ in ‘Asperger’s Disorder’ edited by Rausch, Johnson and Casanova, recently, I was struck by his contention that one of the two pioneers of autism research—Leo Kanner— was guilty of plagiarism as well as non-attribution of Asperger’s 1938 paper ‘Das psychisch abnorme kind’ (Fitzgerald 2008a) published in the Vienna weekly, Wiener Klinischen Wochenzeitschrift. According to Naylor and Skuse, Fitzgerald is not alone in accusing Kanner of plagiarism (Naylor 2011; Skuse 2011), although I cannot find any allegation quite as direct and unequivocal as Fitzgerald’s. I have since noted that Viktoria Lyons and Fitzgerald, having suggested that Kanner may have been aware of
N. Chown Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK N. Chown (&) Twin Elms, Marston Lane, East Farndon, Market Harborough, Leicestershire LE16 9SK, UK e-mail:
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Asperger’s 1938 paper, add that ‘‘Asperger believed that … Kanner was the first to describe ‘infantile autism’’’ (Lyons and Fitzgerald 2007, p. 2022). But was Asperger correct? Plagiarism on the part of one of the pioneers of autism would certainly explain the unusual coincidence of Asperger’s and Kanner’s original papers being published within a year or so of each other (Asperger 1944; Kanner 1943). And, given what I have read, I think Fitzgerald is quite right that Asperger had his own syndrome (Fitzgerald 2008a, p. 4), giving him a special insight into it which suggests that, if plagiarism was involved, he wasn’t the guilty party. But, surely, to accuse the other of non-attribution—let alone plagiarism—requires some real evidence? In a brief correspondence with him, Prof. Fitzgerald suggested that I consider doing my take on the matter. This is it. Morgan reminds us of the common derivation of Asperger’s ‘‘‘autistic psychopathy’ in childhood’’ (Asperger, in (Ed.) Frith, 1991, p. 37, my italics) and Kanner’s ‘‘inborn autistic disturbances of affective contact’’ (Kanner 1943, p. 250, my italics), writing that ‘‘Neither Kanner nor Asperger were aware of each others’ research and on the face of it, the fact that they both used the term autistic to describe these children ‘remarkable (sic). However, this is not the case as the term had first been coined by an earlier psychiatrist Eugene (sic) Bleuler in 1911 to describe the narrowing of relationships to people and to the outside world and withdrawal into the person’s own self in schizophrenia. The term had been derived from the Greek word autos meaning ‘‘self’’ (Morgan, undated). This could explain why both Asperger and Kanner seized on ‘‘autistic’’ but does not necessarily exonerate Kanner. In the ‘History and First Descriptions’ paper Fitzgerald states that ‘‘World War II made it impossible for Asperger to be aware of Kanner’s paper’’ (Fitzgerald 2008a, p. 1).
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Surely it would not have been any easier for Kanner to be aware of Asperger’s? Fitzgerald appears to consider the possibility that a medical refugee from Germany or Austria may have brought a copy of Asperger’s article with them which Kanner may have seen. In his history of autism, Feinstein refers to Kanner having ‘‘brought distinguished German and Austrian physicians over to the US’’ (Feinstein 2010, p. 24) and that his colleague Leon Eisenberg mentioned a figure of 200 medical refugees! We should also not forget that (having been born and brought up in Austria) Kanner spoke German. Feinstein appears to conclude that ‘‘It may well be that Asperger preceded Kanner in his description of autistic features’’ (ibid., p. 24). In conversation with Feinstein, Michael Rutter apparently said that the issue of who thought of autism first reminded him that Darwin was not the first person to talk of evolution but, like Kanner, provided the first organised account of the concept he became famous for. Fitzgerald writes that Kanner must have been aware of Asperger’s work as he began his paper ‘‘Since 1938, there have come to our attention a number of children’’ (Kanner, quoted in Fitzgerald 2008a, p. 1) but in ‘Creativity, Psychosis, Autism and the Social Brain’ Fitzgerald points out that ‘‘Kanner saw his first case of Autism in 1938’’ (Fitzgerald 2008b, p. 216. So Kanner could have been referring to that case rather than to Asperger’s paper. Is Fitzgerald suggesting Kanner was only able to see the case as autism having read Asperger’s paper and hence knowing what to look for? A further possible explanation of the reference to 1938 is that Asperger lectured on autistic psychopathy in Vienna that year (Feinstein 2010; Lyons and Fitzgerald 2007; Skuse 2011);1 a lecture that was apparently written up as the ‘Das psychisch abnorme kind’ article. So, if Fitzgerald is aware of this (he does not mention it), he may feel that Kanner obtained details of this lecture via a colleague. According to Feinstein, Leon Eisenberg’s explanation for Kanner’s reference to 1938 was simply because Kanner saw the first of the children reported on in his 1943 paper—Donald T.—in 1938 (Feinstein 2010). But another one of the original children—Alfred L.—was apparently seen first in November 1935 (Kanner 1943). However, this child was referred to Kanner a second time after 1938 (1941). Perhaps, if Kanner was still referring to autism in Bleuler’s sense in 1935, he may have changed his mind over the diagnosis of Alfred L. when seeing him again in 1941 after Donald T. (and Elaine C.). Unfortunately, this is yet more guesswork.
1
Lyons and Fitzgerald, referring to a paper published by Schirmer in Germany in 2002, state that ‘‘Asperger gave a lecture in the Vienna University Hospital on October 3, 1938 describing the characteristics of ‘autistic psychopathy’ based on his case studies’’ (Lyons and Fitzgerald 2007, p. 2022).
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Feinstein remarks that in 1935 Kanner referred to autism in Bleuler’s sense of the word (rather than the sense in the two founding papers) in the first edition of his book, ‘Child Psychiatry’ (Feinstein 2010). When did Kanner adopt the modern usage? I can see no evidence for it being prior to 1943. From 1938 on he could either have copied Asperger’s then new use of the term or seen some of the same features in his patients that Asperger had seen, identified the social isolation at the heart of the features, also realised that he was seeing a ‘syndrome’ that no-one had apparently described before, and being aware of Bleuler’s work, like Asperger (but not Asperger’s work) co-incidentally adopted the very same descriptor as Asperger. When put like this—listing the steps to achieve the same result—I am more inclined to believe Fitzgerald than when I first read his claim of plagiarism. Asperger’s daughter—Dr. Maria Asperger Felder— interviewed by Feinstein stated that her father used the word ‘‘autistic’’ as early as 1934 (presumably Dr. Asperger Felder meant he was using the term in the modern sense). Feinstein writes as follows: In fact, I have discovered that Asperger was using the term ‘‘autistic’’ even earlier. His psychiatrist daughter, Dr. Maria Asperger Felder, told me that he had employed the word ‘‘autistic’’ as early as 1934 in letters to colleagues during visits to Leipzig and Potsdam in Germany. In a newly published chapter about her father, she cites a letter dated April 14, 1934, in which he discusses the difficulties of diagnostic concepts and suggests the possibility that ‘‘autistic’’ might be a useful term. (Feinstein 2010, pp. 10/11) Feinstein also writes that Christopher Gillberg considers Kanner would have been aware of Asperger’s work as he was ‘‘so very well aware of people writing in other languages at the same time that Asperger was working’’ (Feinstein 2010, p. 11). Of course, Asperger was writing in Kanner’s first language, German, rather than some other ‘foreign’ language. A quick comparison of the two original articles suggests to me that they are very different, maybe too different for one to have been influenced by the other. And even if this is not the case, maybe we should just leave it that two great individuals made ground-breaking contributions in our field so that, in the end, it does not really matter who was first. In any case, as Lorna Wing writes, ‘‘Nothing is totally original. Everyone is influenced by what’s gone before.’’ (Wing, in Feinstein 2010, p. 9) But, if I may be permitted one final point, and if literary sources are acceptable, it is argued by Quayson that Samuel Beckett’s ‘Murphy’—published in 1936—‘‘captures to an
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unerring degree various aspects of autistic spectrum disorders and incorporates them into a literary autistic dynamic’’ (Quayson 2010, p. 840), so that ‘‘It is almost as if Beckett directly anticipated Hans Asperger2 but from within the literary sphere’’ (ibid., p. 842)! Acknowledgments No grants or other financial support have been involved. The letter is entirely my own work. There are no special circumstances to report.
References Asperger, H. (1938). Das psychisch abnormale kind. Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 51, 1314–1317. Asperger, H. (1944). ‘Autistic psychopathy’ in childhood. In Frith, U. (Ed.) Autism and Asperger syndrome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feinstein, A. (2010). A history of autism: Conversations with the pioneers. London: Blackwell. Fitzgerald, M. (2008a). Autism: Asperger’s syndrome—History and first descriptions, In J. L. Rausch, M. E. Johnson, &
M. F. Casanova (Eds.), Asperger’s disorder. New York: Informa Healthcare. Fitzgerald, M. (2008b). Creativity, psychosis, autism and the social brain. Last accessed 25 November 2011 at: http://www.intech open.com/source/pdfs/20041/InTech-Creativity_psychosis_ autism_and_the_social_brain.pdf [online]. Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217–250. Lyons, V., & Fitzgerald, M. (2007). Asperger (1906–1980) and Kanner (1894–1981), the two pioneers of autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 2022–2023. Morgan, H. (undated). Setting the scene—An introduction to autism and related disorders. Last accessed 25 November 2011 at: http:// scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:zop2bPNQdTkJ: scholar.google.com/?biography?%22leo?kanner%22&hl= en&as_sdt=0,5 [online]. Naylor, M. L. (2011). History of autism. Last accessed 26 November 2011 at: http://matthewlnaylor.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/historyof-autism/ [online]. Quayson, A. (2010). Autism, narrative, and emotions: On Samuel Beckett’s Murphy. University of Toronto Quarterly, 79(2), 838–864. Skuse, D. H. (2011). The extraordinary political world of autism. Brain, 134(8), 2436–2439.
2
I think Quayson refers to Asperger, not Kanner (or both), because he considers Beckett to have had Asperger’s syndrome; I don’t think he is taking sides in the ‘who came first, Asperger or Kanner’ debate!
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