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The "Chuas of Shah Daulah" - clearer evidence, less hysteria ?
In the mid-1980s I happened to see two of the people with microcephaly, known as "Chuas" (rats), begging at the railway station in Gujrat city, Pakistan. A few years later I visited the shrine of Shah Daulah, where the "Chuas" were based, and had begun collecting historical evidence about them. The study resulted in an article in 'History of Psychiatry' in 1996; yet that was more a literary composition than a clear historical narrative. Entombed in an obscure academic journal, it had no discernible impact on the periodic outbreaks of western journalistic hysteria over the 'abuse', 'torture' and 'atrocities' that were supposed to have taken place at the shrine over centuries, and up to the present.
Finally I've got around to a more straightforward account of the evidence about the Chuas, full text open online at http://www.independentliving.org/miles201005.html That does also have scholarly endnotes and a date-ordered annotated bibliography, showing the hard evidence from 1839 onward, and the rise of the Chuas' largely mythical web profile in the past two decades.
It remains to be seen whether the ready availability of a calmer, evidence-based, historical account will have any impact on the myth, or on the current position of microcephalic people in Pakistan, or on the efforts by genetic counsellors to put ordinary Punjabi families in possession of relevant facts about the medical condition.
best, miles
m. miles
west midlands, uk
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