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"Autism is not a modern problem, even though it has only been recognized in modern times. In view of the short history of psychiatry, and the even shorter history of child psychiatry, we know that a disorder recently described is not necessarily a recent disorder. An increase in diagnosed cases does not necessarily means an increase in cases. (...)"  

Page 16 of "Autism - Explaining the Enigma" (1989) by Uta Frith.  

"How Autism was First Recognized  

Any treatment of the topic of childhood Autism must start with the pioneers Leo Kaner and Hans Asperger who, independently of each other, first published accounts of this disorder. These publications, Kanners’s in 1943 and Asperger’s in 1944, contained detailed case descriptions and also offered the first theoretical attempts to explain the disorder. Both authorities believed that there was present from birth a fundamental disturbance which gave rise to highly characteristic problems.    
It seems a remarkable coincidence that both choose the word ‘autistic’in order to characterize the nature of the underlying disturbance. In fact, it is not really a coincidence, since the label had already been introduced by the eminent psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1911. It originally referred to a basic disturbance in schizophrenia (another term coined by Bleuler), namely the narrowing of relationships to people and to the outside world, a narrowing so extreme that it seemed to exclude everything except the person’s own self. This narrowing could be described as a withdrawal from the fabric of social life into the self. Hence the words ‘autistic’ and ‘autism’, from the Greek word autos meaning ‘self’. Today they are applied almost exclusively to the developmental disorder that we here call Autism, with a capital A. I prefer to use the Autism rather than ‘early infantile autism’ or ‘childhood autism’, terms which imply some contrast to ‘adult autism’, and may wrongly suggest that one can grow out of it.   
Both Kanner, working in Baltimore, and Asperger, working in Vienna, saw cases of strange children who has in common some fascinating features. Above all the children seemed to be unable to entertain normal affective relationships with people. In contrast to Bleuler’s schizophrenia the disturbance appeared to have been there from the beginning.   
Kanner’s paper has become the most quoted in the whole literatureon Autism, Asperger’s paper, written in German, and published during the Second World War, was largely ignored. The belief has grown that Asperger described quite a different type of child, not to be confused with the one Kanner described. This belief has no basis, as we see when we look at the original papers. Asperger’s definition of Autism or, as he called it, ‘autistic psychopathy’ is far wider than Kanner’s.Asperger included cases that showed severeorganic damage and those that shaded into normality. Nowadays, the label ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ tends to be reserved for the rare intelligent and highly verbal, near-normal autistic child.This is clearly not what Asperger intended, but having this special category has proved clinically useful. Kanner’s syndromeis nowadays often used to indicate the child with a constellation of classic, ‘nuclear’ features, resembling in astonishing detail features that Kanner identified in his first,inspired description. Again, the category is clinically useful since it communicates a prototypical pattern.(...)"   

Pages 7 and 8 of "Autism - Explaining the Enigma" (1989) by Uta Frith.