Shakespeare & Disability

Shakespeare and his audiences understood their bodies within the
frameworks that were available to them, as we do now. The most
widely accepted way of understanding the body was as being made up
of various liquid chemicals (the “humours”). These mingled with each
other and responded to the external environment. In this sense, people
thought of their bodies as being highly differentiated and constantly
changing. Bodily difference was a crucial aspect of human physiology.