ADHD History The first notation in scientific litterature.
Attention to a long Winding Road
Scottish-born physician and author (1763-1856) Already In 1798 Sir Alexander Crichton described a mental state with al the essential features of the inattentive subtype of ADHD, the restlessness, problems with attention, the early onset and how it can affect the ability to perform in school. In the chapter of Attention in his book: An inquiry into the nature and origin of mental derangement: comprehending a concise system of the physiology and pathology of the human mind and a history of the passions and their effects – Crichton described a “mental restlessness” and: “The incapacity of attending with a necessary degree of constancy to any one object, almost always arises from an unnatural or morbid sensibility of the nerves, by which means this faculty is incessantly withdrawn from one impression to another.” It may be either born with a person or it may be the effect of accidental diseases “When born with a person it becomes evident at a very early period of life, and has a very bad effect, inasmuch as it renders him incapable of attending with constancy to any one object of education. But it seldom is in so great a degree as totally to impede all instruction; and what is very fortunate, it is generally diminished with age.
“The incapacity of attending with a necessary degree of constancy to any one object, almost always arises from an unnatural or morbid sensibility of the nerves, by which means this faculty is incessantly withdrawn from one impression to another. It may be either born with a person or it may be the effect of accidental diseases.”