| History H364/H546 | DR. SCHNEIDER |
| History of Medicine and Public Health |
This week's readings look at medicine and the state in the
twentieth century. Within this large context, we look more specifically
at public health and eugenics in America in the first 40 years
of the century
Porter, 397-427 "Public Medicine" (Where does the title of chapter come from?)
The overall question is why was action taken in public health during the nineteenth century?
More specifically,
What was the underlying role of industrialization?What were the health consequences in both living and working conditions? What new illnesses were there, whether from industrialization or other sources?
When, where, and how were conditions recognized and explained (in France and England)?
Roles of Villermé, Chadwick and Snow
for Chadwick,
reading in Rothman, "Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain" London, 1842), " 217-39
For France,
reading Pinkney, David H., "Napoleon III's Transformation of Paris: The Origins and Development of the Idea," Journal of Modern History 1955 27(2): 125-134
What was the extent and costs of diseases? What did he propose to prevent them? By implication what was the cause?
How was the U.S. different? How was it the same?
What was the role of politics?
What happened to the health of the public between 1800 and 1900?
Were people healthier? If so, why? Specifically, were public health measures the cause?
reading James Colgrove, "The McKeown Thesis: A Historical Controversy and Its Enduring Influence," American Journal of Public Health (May 2002),Vol 92, No. 5: 725-29
Public Health in the twentieth century, eugenics
Porter, "Medicine, state and society" 628-42
What does Porter mean when he says, "The twentieth century generated a welter of programmes and policies devoted to the people's health [from the socialist left to the facist right]. Either way, the hallowed liberal-individualist Hippocratic model of a sacred private contract between patient and doctor seemed...passé."
In what ways has medicine grown besides numbers of physicians and patients treated? What was eugenics and how did the government become involved in it?
Elmore JG, Feinstein AR., "Joseph Goldberger: an unsung hero of American clinical epidemiology," Ann Intern Med. 1994 Sep 1;121(5):372-5
Pernick, Martin S. "Eugenics and public health in American history." American Journal of Public Health, 1997 (87): 1767-1772
What was the origin and features of the eugenics movement in the early twentieth century?
In what ways was it at odds with the public health movement?
What did it have in common with it?
Alexandra Stern, "“We Cannot Make a Silk Purse out of a Sow’s Ear”: Eugenics in the Hoosier Heartland, 1900-1960 ," (2006)