A number of meanings have accumulated around the term 'disability' over the decades. Disability is a class in itself that maintains no socioeconomic boundaries and anyone may fall prey to it at any time. It can be congenital and can also come about as a result of a sudden accident, a fall or a disease. Commonly accepted myths and stereotypes about disabled people, tend to present disability as a kind of ‘lack’ or ‘misfortune’ which make one’s life miserable for ever. The negative terms usually used to describe them as 'crippled', 'handicapped' or 'less-fortunate' – all stress upon the disabled person's biological imperfections. Some other terms such as 'physically challenged', 'impaired', 'persons with special needs' stress the disabled person's apartness and dislocation from the group and community. Such negative terminology does a great harm to the disabled by marginalizing them in the society. Up to the 19th century disabled people were considered to be horrors of Nature or frightening freaks. With the professionalization of medicine in the 20th century and the subsequent attitudinal change in the scientists and doctors, the disabled people were no longer treated as 'human oddities' but as normal individuals with certain different kinds of abilities.