To the Rescue: First Responders and Medical(ized) Bodies in Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

Abstract:Founded in 1881, the Wiener Freiwillige Rettungs-Gesellschaft (WFRG) sought to provide first aid to city dwellers in fin-de-siècle Vienna. This article analyzes how first responders established themselves as intermediaries between patients and the medical clinic and sought legitimacy from authorities as medical professionals. First responders contributed to processes of medicalization, widely shared information on patients, and readily deferred to police at a time of rapid change. Drawing on Viennese newspapers and the WFRG's annual reports and daily logbooks, the author shows how first responders dealt with public scrutiny, conscripted themselves into the fight against malingerers, and joined authorities in administratively surveying and morally policing patients' bodies. In their quest to gain social and professional legitimacy, first responders' medicalizing practices and deference to existing authorities went hand in hand.