The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century PDF

The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century.\ elaborated by Mai and accepted by the elector palatine in 1800\ was never put into effect. Occasionally the state is also the object\ of solicitations which it resists.\ Thus the eighteenth-century problematization of nasa-politics\ does not correla...

The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century.\ elaborated by Mai and accepted by the elector palatine in 1800\ was never put into effect. Occasionally the state is also the object\ of solicitations which it resists.\ Thus the eighteenth-century problematization of nasa-politics\ does not correlate with a uniform trend of state intervention in\ the practice of medicine, but rather with the emergence at a\ multitude of sites in the social body of health and disease a s\ problems requiring some form or other of collective control\ measures. Rather than being the product of a vertical initiative\ coming from above, nasa-politics in the eighteenth century fig\ ures as a problem with a number of different origins and ori\ entations, being the problem of the health of all as a priority for\ all, the state of health of a population as a general obj ective of\ policy.\ The most striking trait of this nasa-politics, concern with which\ extends throughout French and indeed European society in the\ eighteenth century, no doubt consists in the displacement of\ health problems relative to problems of assistance. Schemati\ cally, one can say that up to the end of the seventeenth century,\ institutions for assistance to the poor serve as the collective means\ of dealing with disease. Certainly there are exceptions to this:\ the regulations for times of epidemic, measures taken in plague\ towns, and the quarantines enforced in certain large ports, all\ constituted forms of authoritarian medicalization not organically\ linked to techniques of assistance. But outside these limit cases,\ medicine understood and practiced as a \"service\" operated sim\ ply as one of the components of \"assistance. \" It was addressed\ to the category, so important despite the vagueness of its bound\ aries, of the \"sick poor.\" In economic terms, this medical service\ was provided mainly thanks to charitable foundations. Insti\ tutionally, it was exercised within the framework of lay and\ religious organizations devoted to a number of ends: distribution\ of food and clothing, care of abandoned children, projects of\ elementary education and moral proselytism, provision of work\ shops and workrooms, and in some cases the surveillance of\ \"unstable\" or \"troublesome\" elements (in the cities, the hospital\ \'·bureaux had a jurisdiction over vagabonds and beggars, and the The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century. 2 75\ elaborated by Mai and accepted by the elector palatine in 1800\ was never put into effect. Occasionally the state is also the object\ of solicitations which it resists.\ Thus the eighteenth-century problematization of nasa-politics\ does not correlate with a uniform trend of state intervention in\ the practice of medicine, but rather with the emergence at a\ multitude of sites in the social body of health and disease a s\ problems requiring some form or other of collective control\ measures. Rather than being the product of a vertical initiative\ coming from above, nasa-politics in the eighteenth century fig\ ures as a problem with a number of different origins and ori\ entations, being the problem of the health of all as a priority for\ all, the state of health of a population as a general obj ective of\ policy.\ The most striking trait of this nasa-politics, concern with which\ extends throughout French and indeed European society in the\ eighteenth century, no doubt consists in the displacement of\ health problems relative to problems of assistance. Schemati\ cally, one can say that up to the end of the seventeenth century,\ institutions for assistance to the poor serve as the collective means\ of dealing with disease. Certainly there are exceptions to this:\ the regulations for times of epidemic, measures taken in plague\ towns, and the quarantines enforced in certain large ports, all\ constituted forms of authoritarian medicalization not organically\ linked to techniques of assistance. But outside these limit cases,\ medicine understood and practiced as a \"service\" operated sim\ ply as one of the components of \"assistance. \" It was addressed\ to the category, so important despite the vagueness of its bound\ aries, of the \"sick poor.\" In economic terms, this medical service\ was provided mainly thanks to charitable foundations. Insti\ tutionally, it was exercised within the framework of lay and\ religious organizations devoted to a number of ends: distribution\ of food and clothing, care of abandoned children, projects of\ elementary education and moral proselytism, provision of work\ shops and workrooms, and in some cases the surveillance of\ \"unstable\" or \"troublesome\" elements (in the cities, the hospital\ \'·bureaux had a jurisdiction over vagabonds and beggars, and the The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century. 2 75\ elaborated by Mai and accepted by the elector palatine in 1800\ was never put into effect. Occasionally the state is also the object\ of solicitations which it resists.\ Thus the eighteenth-century problematization of nasa-politics\ does not correlate with a uniform trend of state intervention in\ the practice of medicine, but rather with the emergence at a\ multitude of sites in the social body of health and disease a s\ problems requiring some form or other of collective control\ measures. Rather than being the product of a vertical initiative\ coming from above, nasa-politics in the eighteenth century fig\ ures as a problem with a number of different origins and ori\ entations, being the problem of the health of all as a priority for\ all, the state of health of a population as a general obj ective of\ policy.\ The most striking trait of this nasa-politics, concern with which\ extends throughout French and indeed European society in the\ eighteenth century, no doubt consists in the displacement of\ health problems relative to problems of assistance. Schemati\ cally, one can say that up to the end of the seventeenth century,\ institutions for assistance to the poor serve as the collective means\ of dealing with disease. Certainly there are exceptions to this:\ the regulations for times of epidemic, measures taken in plague\ towns, and the quarantines enforced in certain large ports, all\ constituted forms of authoritarian medicalization not organically\ linked to techniques of assistance. But outside these limit cases,\ medicine understood and practiced as a \"service\" operated sim\ ply as one of the components of \"assistance. \" It was addressed\ to the category, so important despite the vagueness of its bound\ aries, of the \"sick poor.\" In economic terms, this medical service\ was provided mainly thanks to charitable foundations. Insti\ tutionally, it was exercised within the framework of lay and\ religious organizations devoted to a number of ends: distribution\ of food and clothing, care of abandoned children, projects of\ elementary education and moral proselytism, provision of work\ shops and workrooms, and in some cases the surveillance of\ \"unstable\" or \"troublesome\" elements (in the cities, the hospital\ \'·bureaux had a jurisdiction over vagabonds and beggars, and the The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century. 2 75\ elaborated by Mai and accepted by the elector palatine in 1800\ was never put into effect. Occasionally the state is also the object\ of solicitations which it resists.\ Thus the eighteenth-century problematization of nasa-politics\ does not correlate with a uniform trend of state intervention in\ the practice of medicine, but rather with the emergence at a\ multitude of sites in the social body of health and disease a s\ problems requiring some form or other of collective control\ measures. Rather than being the product of a vertical initiative\ coming from above, nasa-politics in the eighteenth century fig\ ures as a problem with a number of different origins and ori\ entations, being the problem of the health of all as a priority for\ all, the state of health of a population as a general obj ective of\ policy.\ The most striking trait of this nasa-politics, concern with which\ extends throughout French and indeed European society in the\ eighteenth century, no doubt consists in the displacement of\ health problems relative to problems of assistance. Schemati\ cally, one can say that up to the end of the seventeenth century,\ institutions for assistance to the poor serve as the collective means\ of dealing with disease. Certainly there are exceptions to this:\ the regulations for times of epidemic, measures taken in plague\ towns, and the quarantines enforced in certain large ports, all\ constituted forms of authoritarian medicalization not organically\ linked to techniques of assistance. But outside these limit cases,\ medicine understood and practiced as a \"service\" operated sim\ ply as one of the components of \"assistance. \" It was addressed\ to the category, so important despite the vagueness of its bound\ aries, of the \"sick poor.\" In economic terms, this medical service\ was provided mainly thanks to charitable foundations. Insti\ tutionally, it was exercised within the framework of lay and\ religious organizations devoted to a number of ends: distribution\ of food and clothing, care of abandoned children, projects of\ elementary education and moral proselytism, provision of work\ shops and workrooms, and in some cases the surveillance of\ \"unstable\" or \"troublesome\" elements (in the cities, the hospital\ \'·bureaux had a jurisdiction over vagabonds and beggars, and the The Politics of Health in the Eighteenth Century. 2 75\ elaborated by Mai and accepted by the elector palatine in 1800\ was never put into effect. Occasionally the state is also the object\ of solicitations which it resists.\ Thus the eighteenth-century problematization of nasa-politics\ does not correlate with a uniform trend of state intervention in\ the practice of medicine, but rather with the emergence at a\ multitude of sites in the social body of health and disease a s\ problems requiring some form or other of collective control\ measures. Rather than being the product of a vertical initiative\ coming from above, nasa-politics in the eighteenth century fig\ ures as a problem with a number of different origins and ori\ entations, being the problem of the health of all as a priority for\ all, the state of health of a population as a general obj ective of\ policy.\ The most striking trait of this nasa-politics, concern with which\ extends throughout French and indeed European society in the\ eighteenth century, no doubt consists in the displacement of\ health problems relative to problems of assistance. Schemati\ cally, one can say that up to the end of the seventeenth century,\ institutions for assistance to the poor serve as the collective means\ of dealing with disease. Certainly there are exceptions to this:\ the regulations for times of epidemic, measures taken in plague\ towns, and the quarantines enforced in certain large ports, all\ constituted forms of authoritarian medicalization not organically\ linked to techniques of assistance. But outside these limit cases,\ medicine understood and practiced as a \"service\" operated sim\ ply as one of the components of \"assistance. \" It was addressed\ to the category, so important despite the vagueness of its bound\ aries, of the \"sick poor.\" In economic terms, this medical service\ was provided mainly thanks to charitable foundations. Insti\ tutionally, it was exercised within the framework of lay and\ religious organizations devoted to a number of ends: distribution\ of food and clothing, care of abandoned children, projects of\ elementary education and moral proselytism, provision of work\ shops and workrooms, and in some cases the surveillance of\ \"unstable\" or \"troublesome\" elements (in the cities, the hospital\ \'·bureaux had a jurisdiction over vagabonds and beggars, and the 2 76. Practices and Knowledge\ parish bureaux and charitable societies also very explicitly adopted\ the role of d enouncing \"bad subj ects\"). From a technical point\ of view, the role of therapeutics in the working of the hospitals\ in the classical age was limited in extent in comparison with the\ scale of provision of material assistance, and with the admin\ istrative structure. Sickness is only one among a range of factors,\ including infirmity, old age, inability to find work, and desti\ tution, which compose the figure of the \"necessitous pauper\"\ who deserves hospitalization.\ The first phenomenon during the eighteenth century which\ should be noted is the progressive dislocation of these mixed\ and polyvalent procedures of assistance. This dismantling is\ carried out, or rather is called for (since it only begins to become\ effective late in the century), as the upshot of a general reex\ amination of modes of investment and capitalization. The sys\ tem of \"foundations, \" which immobilize substantial sums of\ money and whose revenues serve to support the idle and thus\ allow them to remain outside the circuits of production, is crit\ icized by economists and administrators. The process of dis\ memberment is also carried out as a result of a finer grid of\ observation of the population and the distinctions which this\ observation aims to draw between the different categories of\ unfortunates to which charity confusedly addresses itself. In\ this process of the gradual attenuation of traditional social sta\ tuses, the \"pauper\" is one of the first to be effaced, giving way\ to a whole series of functional discriminations (the good poor\ and the bad poor, the willfully idle and the involuntarily un\ employed, those who can do some kind of work and those who\ cannot). An analysis of idleness-and its conditions and ef\ fects-tends to replace the somewhat global charitable sacrali\ zation of \"the poor. \" This analysis has as its practical objective\ at best to make poverty useful by fixing it to the apparatus of\ production, at worst to lighten as much as possible the burden\ it imposes on the rest of society. The problem is to set the \"able\ bodied\" poor to work and transform them into a useful labor\ force, but it is also to assure the self-financing by the poor them \ selves of the cost of their sickness and temporary or permanent\'\ incapacitation, and further to render profitable in the short or\ long term the educating of orphans and foundlings. Thus, a\' 2 76. Practices and Knowledge\ parish bureaux and charitable societies also very explicitly adopted\ the role of d enouncing \"bad subj ects\"). From a technical point\ of view, the role of therapeutics in the working of the hospitals\ in the classical age was limited in extent in comparison with the\ scale of provision of material assistance, and with the admin\ istrative structure. Sickness is only one among a range of factors,\ including infirmity, old age, inability to find work, and desti\ tution, which compose the figure of the \"necessitous pauper\"\ who deserves hospitalization.\ The first phenomenon during the eighteenth century which\ should be noted is the progressive dislocation of these mixed\ and polyvalent procedures of assistance. This dismantling is\ carried out, or rather is called for (since it only begins to become\ effective late in the century), as the upshot of a general reex\ amination of modes of investment and capitalization. The sys\ tem of \"foundations, \" which immobilize substantial sums of\ money and whose revenues serve to support the idle and thus\ allow them to remain outside the circuits of production, is crit\ icized by economists and administrators. The process of dis\ memberment is also carried out as a result of a finer grid of\ observation of the population and the distinctions which this\ observation aims to draw between the different categories of\ unfortunates to which charity confusedly addresses itself. In\ this process of the gradual attenuation of traditional social sta\ tuses, the \"pauper\" is one of the first to be effaced, giving way\ to a whole series of functional discriminations (the good poor\ and the bad poor, the willfully idle and the involuntarily un\ employed, those who can do some kind of work and those who\ cannot). An analysis of idleness-and its conditions and ef\ fects-tends to replace the somewhat global charitable sacrali\ zation of \"the poor. \" This analysis has as its practical objective\ at best to make poverty useful by fixing it to the apparatus of\ production, at worst to lighten as much as possible the burden\ it imposes on the rest of society. The problem is to set the \"able\ bodied\" poor to work and transform them into a useful labor\ force, but it is also to assure the self-financing by the poor them \ selves of the cost of their sickness and temporary or permanent\'\ incapacitation, and further to render profitable in the short or\ long term the educating of orphans and foundlings. Thus, a\'