The Physical and the Moral

Anthropology, Physiology, and Philosophical Medicine in France, 1750 1850
Erscheinungsjahr 2002
ISBN: 978-0-521-52462-9
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 300 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 496 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine

This book explores the tradition of the 'science of man' in French medicine of the era 1750-1850, focusing on controversies about the nature of the 'physical-moral' relation and their effects on the role of medicine in French society. Its chief purpose is to recover the history of a holistic tradition in French medicine that has been neglected because it lay outside the mainstream themes of modern medicine, which include experimental, reductionist, and localistic conceptions of health and disease. Professor Williams also challenges existing historiography, which argues that the 'anthropological' approach to medicine was a short-term by-product of the leftist politics of the French Revolution. This work argues instead that the medical science of man long outlived the Revolution, that it spanned traditional ideological divisions, and that it reflected the shared aim of French physicians, whatever their politics, to claim broad cultural authority in French society.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Elizabeth A.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte
• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Geschichte der Medizin

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Montpellier vitalism and the science of man; 2. Anthropological medicine and the medical revolution; 3. Medical politics under the restoration: the fragmentation of the science of man; 4. Decline and dispersal: the science of man, 1830-1848; Epilogue; Index.