Analysis of Medical Politics in the 18th Century PDF

First of all, two preliminary remarks: 1\. No doubt it is scarcely fruitful to look for a relation of an­ teriority or dependence between the two terms of a private, \"liberal\" medicine, subject to the mechanisms of individual in­ itiative and laws of the market, and a medical politics, drawing su...

First of all, two preliminary remarks: 1\. No doubt it is scarcely fruitful to look for a relation of an­ teriority or dependence between the two terms of a private, \"liberal\" medicine, subject to the mechanisms of individual in­ itiative and laws of the market, and a medical politics, drawing support from structures of power and concerning itself with the health of a collectivity. It is somewhat mythical to suppose that..Western medicine originated as a collective practice, endowed ; by magico-religious institutions with its social character and ,;gradually dismantled through the subsequent organization of \\private clienteles.l But it is equally inadequate to posit the ex­ r1\" istence at the historical threshold of modern medicine of a sin­ i; , private, individual medical relation, \"clinical\" in its economic \' nctioning and epistemological form, and to imagine that a ;:Se es of corrections, adjustments, and constraints gradualyl came ;:.t. o socialize this relatio , ausing it to be to some degree taken ,charge of by the collectivlty.\ 1i\ What the eighteenth century shows, in any case, is a double­ ;sided process. The development of a medical market in the form ;of private clienteles; the extension of a network of personnel toffering qualified medical attention; the growth of individual ::and family demand for health care; the emergence of a clinical % edicine strongly centered on individual examination, diag­ ttnosis, and therapy; the explicitly moral and scientific-and se­ :(cretly economic..xaltation of \"private consultation\"; in short, \