"Physical puritanism", the name given to the popular medical reform movements of early Victorian Britain by the Edinburgh academic Samuel Brown, nicely evokes their links with religious dissent. While historians have examined the formal organization, leadership, and membership of several of these movements, we know very little about the ways of thinking of their ordinary adherents. The diary of John Young (1820-1904), a Sunderland chemist and druggist and local preacher of the Wesleyan Methodist Association, affords unrivalled insights into the mind of one "physical puritan". In particular, Young's reading of the Edinburgh physician and phrenologist Andrew Combe's influential work Principles of Physiology (1834) can be examined in detail. Virginia Smith has argued that such advice books are valuable in providing access to lay ideas about health. Their readership, however, has not been studied. This article offers a case study which calls into question Smith's assertion that the new utilitarian popular physiology of the 1830s and 1840s was valued principally for the physical benefits offered by its therapies, so distinguishing it from its more spiritually-oriented eighteenth-century antecedents. I argue that the natural theology which marks Combe's work was important in helping dissenters like Young to appropriate new ideas (in particular ideas derived from the popular science of phrenology) not only to promote physical health, but also to assist in attaining spiritual goals. For some of their readers, Combe and Wesley were not so far apart.
{"title":"Physical puritanism and religious dissent: the case of John Young (1820-1904), Sunderland chemist and druggist and Methodist lay preacher.","authors":"M. Clement","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.2.197","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.2.197","url":null,"abstract":"\"Physical puritanism\", the name given to the popular medical reform movements of early Victorian Britain by the Edinburgh academic Samuel Brown, nicely evokes their links with religious dissent. While historians have examined the formal organization, leadership, and membership of several of these movements, we know very little about the ways of thinking of their ordinary adherents. The diary of John Young (1820-1904), a Sunderland chemist and druggist and local preacher of the Wesleyan Methodist Association, affords unrivalled insights into the mind of one \"physical puritan\". In particular, Young's reading of the Edinburgh physician and phrenologist Andrew Combe's influential work Principles of Physiology (1834) can be examined in detail. Virginia Smith has argued that such advice books are valuable in providing access to lay ideas about health. Their readership, however, has not been studied. This article offers a case study which calls into question Smith's assertion that the new utilitarian popular physiology of the 1830s and 1840s was valued principally for the physical benefits offered by its therapies, so distinguishing it from its more spiritually-oriented eighteenth-century antecedents. I argue that the natural theology which marks Combe's work was important in helping dissenters like Young to appropriate new ideas (in particular ideas derived from the popular science of phrenology) not only to promote physical health, but also to assist in attaining spiritual goals. For some of their readers, Combe and Wesley were not so far apart.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82434669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There are three identifiable phases in comparing vaccination policy in England, Prussia and Imperial Germany. (1) Prior to the 1870's the tradition of medical police in Prussia resulted in the vaccination of the population being treated as a State responsibility earlier than in England and provided an appropriate administrative framework. The administrative pressure that could be exerted persuaded the Prussian authorities that legislation to make vaccination compulsory was unnecessary. In contrast, England and Wales lacked both the tradition and administrative structures of a medical police. Legislation (1840, 1853) for free and universal infant vaccination was followed by radical ideological and administrative innovation. (2) From 1875 to 1889 both countries provided free and compulsory vaccination for all. In England this was limited to infants; in Germany including Prussia, it included the re-vaccination of children. (3) After 1889 England and Germany began to diverge more sharply. In England vaccination rates fell and after 1898 conscientious objectors were excused from having to have their children vaccinated. Germany retained compulsory vaccination and rates in the two countries increasingly diverged. England came to rely on the local public health administration for the surveillance and containment of smallpox, including selective vaccination of contacts. Despite these differences smallpox mortality dropped sharply in both countries, although in Germany somewhat earlier. The English reliance on surveillance and containment prefigures that of the WHO in the eradication of smallpox in the Third World. It suggests that the emphasis on the importance of high levels of mass vaccination in the German literature should perhaps be revised.
{"title":"Vaccination policy against smallpox, 1835-1914: a comparison of England with Prussia and Imperial Germany.","authors":"E. P. Hennock","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.1.49","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.1.49","url":null,"abstract":"There are three identifiable phases in comparing vaccination policy in England, Prussia and Imperial Germany. (1) Prior to the 1870's the tradition of medical police in Prussia resulted in the vaccination of the population being treated as a State responsibility earlier than in England and provided an appropriate administrative framework. The administrative pressure that could be exerted persuaded the Prussian authorities that legislation to make vaccination compulsory was unnecessary. In contrast, England and Wales lacked both the tradition and administrative structures of a medical police. Legislation (1840, 1853) for free and universal infant vaccination was followed by radical ideological and administrative innovation. (2) From 1875 to 1889 both countries provided free and compulsory vaccination for all. In England this was limited to infants; in Germany including Prussia, it included the re-vaccination of children. (3) After 1889 England and Germany began to diverge more sharply. In England vaccination rates fell and after 1898 conscientious objectors were excused from having to have their children vaccinated. Germany retained compulsory vaccination and rates in the two countries increasingly diverged. England came to rely on the local public health administration for the surveillance and containment of smallpox, including selective vaccination of contacts. Despite these differences smallpox mortality dropped sharply in both countries, although in Germany somewhat earlier. The English reliance on surveillance and containment prefigures that of the WHO in the eradication of smallpox in the Third World. It suggests that the emphasis on the importance of high levels of mass vaccination in the German literature should perhaps be revised.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82903080","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The history of public health is a given aspect of general (cultural, social and political) history. It is subject to conditions and quality standards given in general history. History in public health is-in contrast to a history of public health-guided by the relevance of its questions and issues for present-day problems of general decision-making in public health care. The task of history in public health is the background analysis of social changes in public health. History in public health clarifies the actual field of public health with respect to its open and hidden lines and factors of development.
{"title":"History of public health-history in public health: looking back and looking forward.","authors":"Alfons Labisch","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.1.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.1.1","url":null,"abstract":"The history of public health is a given aspect of general (cultural, social and political) history. It is subject to conditions and quality standards given in general history. History in public health is-in contrast to a history of public health-guided by the relevance of its questions and issues for present-day problems of general decision-making in public health care. The task of history in public health is the background analysis of social changes in public health. History in public health clarifies the actual field of public health with respect to its open and hidden lines and factors of development.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90226687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
During the past two decades, scholars have attempted to quanify the mortality at sea of a large number of seaborne populations. We now have estimates of death rates associated with over 13,000 voyages between 1497 and the First World War. These include voyages of Portuguese and Dutch travellers to Asian destinations; African slaves, European convicts, and free emigrants to the Americas; British convicts to Australia; British government-assisted emigrants to South Africa and Australia; and African, Indian, Chinese, and Pacific Islander indentured labourers to various destinations in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean regions. Whereas the death rate on slave voyages did not decline over time, the death rate of young adults and older children on non-slave voyages plummeted in the early-to-middle nineteenth century, preceding the modern mortality decline on land. Yet, the infant death rate of babies who embarked, or who were born at sea, although steadily declining, remained very much higher than infant mortality on land. The reduction in infant maritime mortality, which lagged well behind that of voyaging adults and children, thus mirrors the difficulty in reducing infant death rates on land. This paper surveys the recent literature on mortality at sea, drawing implications for our understanding of the modern mortality decline on land.
{"title":"Explaining the modern mortality decline: what can we learn from sea voyages.","authors":"R. Haines, R. Shlomowitz","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.1.15","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.1.15","url":null,"abstract":"During the past two decades, scholars have attempted to quanify the mortality at sea of a large number of seaborne populations. We now have estimates of death rates associated with over 13,000 voyages between 1497 and the First World War. These include voyages of Portuguese and Dutch travellers to Asian destinations; African slaves, European convicts, and free emigrants to the Americas; British convicts to Australia; British government-assisted emigrants to South Africa and Australia; and African, Indian, Chinese, and Pacific Islander indentured labourers to various destinations in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean regions. Whereas the death rate on slave voyages did not decline over time, the death rate of young adults and older children on non-slave voyages plummeted in the early-to-middle nineteenth century, preceding the modern mortality decline on land. Yet, the infant death rate of babies who embarked, or who were born at sea, although steadily declining, remained very much higher than infant mortality on land. The reduction in infant maritime mortality, which lagged well behind that of voyaging adults and children, thus mirrors the difficulty in reducing infant death rates on land. This paper surveys the recent literature on mortality at sea, drawing implications for our understanding of the modern mortality decline on land.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78813842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This work traces attempts to bring about the passage of a compulsory health insurance law in Israel-from initial efforts in 1925 to the actual passage of such legislation in 1995. It examines the course of events in historical perspective, documenting positions adopted by various bodies-governmental, political, quasi-political, professional, and other-at various stages, clarifying why early initiatives failed. Most of this work is founded on historical archival documents found in London and Israel.
{"title":"Health reform in Israel: some aspects of seventy years of struggle (1925-1995).","authors":"S. Shvarts","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.1.73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.1.73","url":null,"abstract":"This work traces attempts to bring about the passage of a compulsory health insurance law in Israel-from initial efforts in 1925 to the actual passage of such legislation in 1995. It examines the course of events in historical perspective, documenting positions adopted by various bodies-governmental, political, quasi-political, professional, and other-at various stages, clarifying why early initiatives failed. Most of this work is founded on historical archival documents found in London and Israel.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77699193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The 1967 Abortion Act did not quell public discussion on therapeutic abortions in Britain. Criticism of the way the Act was working began almost as soon as the legislation came into force. After only three years, a committee of enquiry, chaired by Justice Elizabeth Lane, studied the working of the Act. This Committee caused some surprise on all sides of the abortion debate by offering unanimous support for the Act in its original form. Understanding how the Lane Committee arrived at its unexpected recommendations is important not only because the Report has proved to be an enduring endorsement of the Act but also because the Lane Committee provides a case study of the process of policy formulation at the level of a committee of enquiry. The Lane Committee appears to have achieved consensus incrementally. First a majority and then the whole Committee supported the Act as a humane measure requiring regulatory and not legislative solutions to the problems of its working. Using both written and oral sources, I will argue that consensus evolved through the compelling leadership of several key members of the majority group with particular influence by the most psychosocially oriented members of the Committee.
{"title":"Abortion policy and politics on the Lane Committee of Enquiry, 1971-1974.","authors":"A. Wivel","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.1.109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.1.109","url":null,"abstract":"The 1967 Abortion Act did not quell public discussion on therapeutic abortions in Britain. Criticism of the way the Act was working began almost as soon as the legislation came into force. After only three years, a committee of enquiry, chaired by Justice Elizabeth Lane, studied the working of the Act. This Committee caused some surprise on all sides of the abortion debate by offering unanimous support for the Act in its original form. Understanding how the Lane Committee arrived at its unexpected recommendations is important not only because the Report has proved to be an enduring endorsement of the Act but also because the Lane Committee provides a case study of the process of policy formulation at the level of a committee of enquiry. The Lane Committee appears to have achieved consensus incrementally. First a majority and then the whole Committee supported the Act as a humane measure requiring regulatory and not legislative solutions to the problems of its working. Using both written and oral sources, I will argue that consensus evolved through the compelling leadership of several key members of the majority group with particular influence by the most psychosocially oriented members of the Committee.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83487154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Students of leprosy stigma are at odds over its sources, intensity, and current presistence. On the basis of a study of leprosy in Thailand that combined an archival survey with anthropological field-work, the present article offers a different thesis on these issues from those that have been proposed thus far. The thesis suggests that prior to the discovery of a cure for the disease, its sufferers encountered ambivalent rather than severly stigmatizing reactions. Yet the public's selective exposure-mainly to beggars with the disease-paved the way to the perception of leprosy as the epitome of stigmatization and to its transformation into a metaphor for degradation. Progress in the medical treatment of the disease significantly improved patients' social acceptance but also allowed them to keep their illness a secret. Their consequent disappearance from the public eye turned the figurative use of leprosy in the spoken language into the main source of shaping its image. This development contributed to the irrefutability and perpetuation of the negative image, and even to its intensification to the extent of utter divorce from concrete reality. After expounding this thesis, the paper discusses its potential contribution to resolving the disputes over the roots, severity, and persistence of leprosy stigma on the international level.
{"title":"Beggars, metaphors, and stigma: a missing link in the social history of leprosy.","authors":"L. Navon","doi":"10.1093/SHM/11.1.89","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/11.1.89","url":null,"abstract":"Students of leprosy stigma are at odds over its sources, intensity, and current presistence. On the basis of a study of leprosy in Thailand that combined an archival survey with anthropological field-work, the present article offers a different thesis on these issues from those that have been proposed thus far. The thesis suggests that prior to the discovery of a cure for the disease, its sufferers encountered ambivalent rather than severly stigmatizing reactions. Yet the public's selective exposure-mainly to beggars with the disease-paved the way to the perception of leprosy as the epitome of stigmatization and to its transformation into a metaphor for degradation. Progress in the medical treatment of the disease significantly improved patients' social acceptance but also allowed them to keep their illness a secret. Their consequent disappearance from the public eye turned the figurative use of leprosy in the spoken language into the main source of shaping its image. This development contributed to the irrefutability and perpetuation of the negative image, and even to its intensification to the extent of utter divorce from concrete reality. After expounding this thesis, the paper discusses its potential contribution to resolving the disputes over the roots, severity, and persistence of leprosy stigma on the international level.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79115861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper traces the history, in northern Canada, of what childbirth has been made to stand for in the relationship between aboriginal women and the agents of colonization. During the early centuries of contact, European impressions of aboriginal women were dominated by associations with animal nature and the myth of painless childbirth, with the result that the culture of childbirth and the role of the midwife were overlooked. During the nineteenth century, the emphasis upon racial difference was reinforced by evolutionary theory, and the myth of the 'savage' woman's 'parturition without pain' was put to rhetorical use by health reformers, physicians, and feminists in Europe and North America. Meanwhile, the realities surrounding childbirth in aboriginal communities received little attention from colonial authorities until high infant and maternal death rates began to arouse official concern in the early twentieth century, when they were blamed on aboriginal women's ignorance of healthy child-bearing practices. As part of its 'civilizing mission', the Canadian government adopted an interventionist policy which led, in recent decades, to the practice of evacuating pregnant women to distant hospitals. This policy has had serious social consequences, and resistance on the part of aboriginal women includes the attempt to legitimize a traditional culture of childbirth disregarded throughout the colonization process.
{"title":"Race, culture, and the colonization of childbirth in northern Canada.","authors":"Patricia Jasen","doi":"10.1093/SHM/10.3.383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/10.3.383","url":null,"abstract":"This paper traces the history, in northern Canada, of what childbirth has been made to stand for in the relationship between aboriginal women and the agents of colonization. During the early centuries of contact, European impressions of aboriginal women were dominated by associations with animal nature and the myth of painless childbirth, with the result that the culture of childbirth and the role of the midwife were overlooked. During the nineteenth century, the emphasis upon racial difference was reinforced by evolutionary theory, and the myth of the 'savage' woman's 'parturition without pain' was put to rhetorical use by health reformers, physicians, and feminists in Europe and North America. Meanwhile, the realities surrounding childbirth in aboriginal communities received little attention from colonial authorities until high infant and maternal death rates began to arouse official concern in the early twentieth century, when they were blamed on aboriginal women's ignorance of healthy child-bearing practices. As part of its 'civilizing mission', the Canadian government adopted an interventionist policy which led, in recent decades, to the practice of evacuating pregnant women to distant hospitals. This policy has had serious social consequences, and resistance on the part of aboriginal women includes the attempt to legitimize a traditional culture of childbirth disregarded throughout the colonization process.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78220752","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 1847 the anaesthetic and analgesic properties of chloroform were discovered. This technology generated a new era for midwifery: mothers could be relieved of pain in childbirth. The introduction of chloroform for childbirth saw increasing medical dominance in obstetrics, traditionally in the hands of the midwife. At the same time the use of chloroform sparked a medical and moral controversy which lasted for several decades. On the one hand women were destined by the 'curse of Eve' to experience pain during childbirth; on the other, medical humanitarians and practitioners believed that there were technical and moral reasons for alleviating pain in childbirth. In concentrating on the debate historians have largely ignored the reactions of mothers to the introduction of the technology. This paper explores changing attitudes to childbearing within the context of colonial Queensland society, 1860-90, by examining the correspondence of an upper-class mother. Her education and liberal outlook, and a certain ambivalence towards motherhood, all influenced her attitude to the use of chloroform and the process of childbirth.
{"title":"'My beloved chloroform'. Attitudes to childbearing in colonial Queensland: a case study.","authors":"H. Woolcock, M. Thearle, K. Saunders","doi":"10.1093/SHM/10.3.437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/SHM/10.3.437","url":null,"abstract":"In 1847 the anaesthetic and analgesic properties of chloroform were discovered. This technology generated a new era for midwifery: mothers could be relieved of pain in childbirth. The introduction of chloroform for childbirth saw increasing medical dominance in obstetrics, traditionally in the hands of the midwife. At the same time the use of chloroform sparked a medical and moral controversy which lasted for several decades. On the one hand women were destined by the 'curse of Eve' to experience pain during childbirth; on the other, medical humanitarians and practitioners believed that there were technical and moral reasons for alleviating pain in childbirth. In concentrating on the debate historians have largely ignored the reactions of mothers to the introduction of the technology. This paper explores changing attitudes to childbearing within the context of colonial Queensland society, 1860-90, by examining the correspondence of an upper-class mother. Her education and liberal outlook, and a certain ambivalence towards motherhood, all influenced her attitude to the use of chloroform and the process of childbirth.","PeriodicalId":68213,"journal":{"name":"医疗社会史研究","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1997-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75341459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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