Politics, ideology, and medical theory: interview with Christopher Hamlin / Política, ideologia e teoria médica: entrevista com Christopher Hamlin

Abstract An interview with Christopher Hamlin in November 2020 in which he explains how he became interested in the history of public health. He talks about the outcomes of epidemics, the relationship between trust in science and moral imagination, why historians use previous public health experiences to think about the present, the role of discipline and ideology in problem-solving arrangements to deal with public health issues, and his new article on legal medicine.

Resumo Entrevista com Christopher Hamlin, feita em novembro de 2020, na qual ele explica como se interessou pela história da saúde pública, fala sobre as consequências das epidemias, sobre a relação entre confiança na ciência e imaginação moral, por que historiadores levantam experiências passadas de saúde pública para pensar a respeito do presente, sobre o papel da disciplina e da ideologia nos arranjos para resolução de problemas de saúde pública e comenta a respeito do seu novo artigo sobre medicina legal.

O que foi a polícia médica? / What were the medical police?

Resumo Este artigo busca novas possibilidades de interpretação do conceito de "polícia médica", usado no Ocidente nos séculos XVIII e XIX. Recorreu-se aos próprios tratados escritos em Alemanha, Reino Unido, França, Espanha e Portugal, o que possibilitou outras maneiras de compreender o que foi a polícia médica na Europa, diferentes das de George Rosen e Michel Foucault, os pensadores do século XX que mais estudaram o assunto. A documentação aponta que esses tratados não foram um fenômeno exclusivamente alemão tampouco seriam uma regulação estatal da profissão médica apenas: eram tratados bastante abrangentes sobre como o Estado deveria gerir a saúde pública, em cada localidade, com suas peculiaridades e exigências próprias, fossem institucionais e/ou políticas.

Abstract The article presents new ways of interpreting the concept "medical police," which was used in the West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Alternative understandings of the medical police in Europe, distinct from those offered by George Rosen and Michel Foucault, the preeminent twentieth-century thinkers on the topic, were derived by studying related treatises written in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal. Records indicate that these treatises were not an exclusively German phenomenon nor did they constitute State regulation of the medical profession alone. Rather, they were broad-ranging treatises on how the State should manage public health in each location, according to its specific features and demands, whether institutional or political in nature.

The Development of German Social Medicine in the Nineteenth Century / 의사학

In his influential treatise System einer vollstandigen medizinischen Polizey, Johann Peter Frank(1745-1821) made significant contributions to the establishment of the concept of medical police, which has been understood as the forerunner of social medicine. Cameralism, the German version of mercantilism, became the very basis on which Frank and other German writers developed the framework of medical police. 'Medical reform' was the catchword of German medical men in the 1840s. The medical reform movement of 1848 was partially caused by a deep political, economic, and social crisis. Although Industrial Revolution began in Germany later than in England and France during the first half of the nineteenth century, by 1848 the formation of German industrial working-class made medical reformers recognize the causal relationships between social and health problems. The outstanding figures in the German medical reform movement of this period were Rudolf Virchow(1821-1902), Solomon Neumann and Rudolf Leubuscher. In his famous Report on the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia, Virchow proposed several radical measures that could be used against the epidemic: the absolute separation of the schools from the church, the establishment of self-government in the state and community, unlimited democracy, road building, and the improvement of agriculture and horticulture. The progressive German medical reformers of the 1840s held to several principles through their action for the enhancement of public hygiene: (1) the health of the people is a matter of direct social concern, (2) social and economic conditions have an important effect on health and disease, (3) steps taken to promote health and to combat disease must be social as well as medical. The 1848 Revolution was defeated. To most Germans after 1870s, the 1848 movement was something from a strange past. The German intellectuals and the middle class accepted social policy of Bismarck. As Bismarck launched national health insurance in 1883, more emphasis in social medicine was given on better health care rather than on social hygiene. The ideologically-oriented social medicine of 1848 was transformed into more administrative one and began to include the insurance concept in health care.

The Development of German Social Medicine in the Nineteenth Century / 의사학

In his influential treatise System einer vollstandigen medizinischen Polizey, Johann Peter Frank(1745-1821) made significant contributions to the establishment of the concept of medical police, which has been understood as the forerunner of social medicine. Cameralism, the German version of mercantilism, became the very basis on which Frank and other German writers developed the framework of medical police. 'Medical reform' was the catchword of German medical men in the 1840s. The medical reform movement of 1848 was partially caused by a deep political, economic, and social crisis. Although Industrial Revolution began in Germany later than in England and France during the first half of the nineteenth century, by 1848 the formation of German industrial working-class made medical reformers recognize the causal relationships between social and health problems. The outstanding figures in the German medical reform movement of this period were Rudolf Virchow(1821-1902), Solomon Neumann and Rudolf Leubuscher. In his famous Report on the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia, Virchow proposed several radical measures that could be used against the epidemic: the absolute separation of the schools from the church, the establishment of self-government in the state and community, unlimited democracy, road building, and the improvement of agriculture and horticulture. The progressive German medical reformers of the 1840s held to several principles through their action for the enhancement of public hygiene: (1) the health of the people is a matter of direct social concern, (2) social and economic conditions have an important effect on health and disease, (3) steps taken to promote health and to combat disease must be social as well as medical. The 1848 Revolution was defeated. To most Germans after 1870s, the 1848 movement was something from a strange past. The German intellectuals and the middle class accepted social policy of Bismarck. As Bismarck launched national health insurance in 1883, more emphasis in social medicine was given on better health care rather than on social hygiene. The ideologically-oriented social medicine of 1848 was transformed into more administrative one and began to include the insurance concept in health care.