Homosexuality is actually an telling case, since as far as I know there was no actual medical reason for the shift (am I wrong?). What happened is that social mores shifted and so the definition of "normal" changed and hence the definition of what an illness was also changed.
Acting really hyperactive was often seen as a manifestation of some kind of disorder (improperly mixed humours and so forth). So were melancholy (what we would call depression) etc.
----- Original Message ---- From: "farmelantj at juno.com" <farmelantj at juno.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Fri, March 5, 2010 11:52:41 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Philip Mirowski - Social Physicist
I can think of conditions like hyperactivity, and more recently shyness (social phobia) off the top of my head.
Homosexuality was defined as a disease for many years, after people had begun to stop defining it as a sin.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant