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DicoPolHiS

Political Dictionary of the History of Health

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    • "Gueules cassées"

      The Gueules cassées, in other words facially disfigured soldiers, are recognized as war wounded people with difficulty, but they represent a turning point in surgery.

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    • Aerobics

      The Gym Tonic aerobics programme heralded the advent of a new politics of the female body

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    • Anorexia

      The medical supervision of anorexia responded to political and scientific stakes in order to normalize puberty. 

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    • Anti-drug Campaigns

      The history of anti-drug campaigns in Canada brings out the equal parts played by international politics and public health concerns.

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    • Antialcoholism

      Over two centuries, medical, political and social circles around the world have been debating the stakes of the fight against alcoholism.

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    • Asperger

      The naming of this syndrome in 1981 is loaded with potent political and historical implications.

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    • Barcelona 1821

      The 1821 yellow fever outbreak in Barcelona made clear the political dimensions of public health legislation.

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    • Bed

      The bed is not a simple object structuring the hospital space. It is also a therapeutic instrument and an indicator for public authorities to guide hospital policy.

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    • Body snatching

      Human dissections have been an essential part of medicine since the fourth century B.C. Contrary to widely held belief, the Church did not prohibit them in the Middle Ages.

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    • Breast feeding

      The naturalness of breast feeding has been subordinated to a political idea of the Nation asserted in an explicit hierarchisation of class and race.

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    • Caesarian section

      In 19th century Belgium, post-mortem caesarean section turned into a politicized debate.

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    • Caster Semenya

      The case of Caster Semenya politicises through sport the intersex condition.

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    • Child psychoanalysis

      Ever since Freud, psychoanalysis has taken an interest in the psychic life of Children. First considered a minor practice, psychoanalysis with children reached its full dimension in the 1970s.

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    • Christine Jorgensen

      “Ex-GI becomes blonde beauty” : in 1953, Christine Jorgensen became the first transsexual in the media.

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    • Clitoris

      Almost entirely overlooked throughout the 20th century, neglected by contemporary medical manuals, the clitoris has gradually returned centre stage thanks to Western feminism.

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    • Criminal abortion

      In 1852 the criminalisation of abortion is reaffirmed after the Academy of Medicine arrived at a resolution regarding therapeutic abortion.

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    • D’Arsonval chronometer

      Time-measurement devices in clinical and experimental settings have historically tended to pathologize mental “slowness” and normalize “speed” as a signifier of mental health.

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    • Dr Quinn

      Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman can be considered as a feminist series as it highlights women's access to scientific and medical professions

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    • Drapetomania

      Drapotemania exemplifies the existence of psychiatric diagnoses rooted in the political stigmatisation of a social group.

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    • Dream

      Scientific dream theories – as well as traditional oneirocritical discourses – have long kept dreaming outside the historical field.

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    • Dreamcatcher

      There are policies of the dream, as illustrated by the different ways of apprehending the dreams in the Amerindian populations.

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    • DSM

      The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a nosological classification that has played - and continues to play - a key role in structuring psychiatric care and research.

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    • Emergency medicine

      The 20th century oversaw the development of emergency medicine as a new public health norm.

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    • Encephalitis

      The European nationalisms have hindered the research on the most mysterious disease of the 20th century.

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    • Epilepsy

      How does the history of epilepsy explain the negative image that this disease still sometimes suffers from?

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    • Excess mortality in psychiatric hospitals

      Did excess mortality among the Great War insane result from a political choice?

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    • Female delirium

      The emerging psychiatry has locked women in contemporary prejudices.

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    • Hollywood smile

      The Hollywood smile, characterized by white, straight teeth, is a complex phenomenon involving social, cultural, scientific and technological changes in the early 20th century. It emerged with the development of film, advertising, orthodontics and cosmetic dentistry.

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    • Hookworm

      The hookworm causes a parasitic infection the history of which helps show how the Rockefeller Foundation impacted on the United States federal healthcare provisions.

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    • Hymen

      By asserting the hymen, a ubiquitous trait of female anatomy, 19th physicians reinforced the taboos affecting women's sexuality.

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    • Intelligence test

      From the outset, the measurement of intelligence was as much a scientific as an eminently political endeavour.

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    • Lesbianism

      Lesbianism is considered in the 17th and nineteenth19th centuries, both as a physical and behavioural pathology. 

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    • Livorno 1804

      In 1804, the outbreak of a suspicious disease in Livorno led to strong tensions between the Italian states.

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    • LSD

      LSD was, for a while in the 50s, a promising medication before becoming controversial.

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    • Lyme

      Patients and physicians hold conflicting political and scientific views on the existence of an emerging disease caused by tick bites.

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    • Lypemania

      The re-naming of an illness is as much a political act as a scientific one, as shown by the case of lypemania

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    • Match workers

      As from the 1830s, match workers were facing numerous work-related hazards.

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    • Mecca

      In 1865 cholera spread from Mecca to the rest of the world, redirecting just-born international health policy’s priorities on Muslim pilgrimage flows.

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    • Menopause

      The history of “menopause” as a medical category revolves around gender relationships.

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    • Montreal 1989

      In July 1989, a handful of activists turned HIV-AIDS into a political issue.

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    • Naturism

      Naturism strives for a natural public health.

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    • Near Death Experience

      In the mid-1970s, the near-death experience emerged as a new spiritual manifestation within medicine, at the heart of a policy of survivors and their trauma.

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    • Neurodiversity

      The notion of neurodiversity appeared at the end of the 90s in an effort to de-pathologize mental illness and combat discrimination.

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    • Nostalgia

      In the 19th century, nostalgia became a mortal illness that endangered French military and colonial might.

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    • Obesity

      Over the course of the 20th century, obesity came to be seen as a public health issue.

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    • Officiers de santé

      Should the new career of assistant medical be understood as a return to the Officiers de Santé status ?

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    • Patient associations

      As early as the years 1930-50, tuberculosis patient associations became significant political actors.

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    • Phage therapy

      Eclipsed by the rise of antibiotics after the Second World War, can bacteria-eating viruses discovered at the beginning of the 20th century be therapeutic tools while resistance to antibiotic therapy emerges?  

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    • Placenta

      The placenta and its singularities illustrate the advent of a new body policy.

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    • Political excitement

      The American psychiatric classification was once a tool at the service of white political power to the detriment of the emancipation of African-Americans.

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    • Psychedelic

      The term psychedelic was coined to refer to psychotic substances explored for use in psychiatry, but which remain under strict control

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    • Psychosis of current events

      During the «Great Depression» of the 1930s, psychiatric professionals diagnosed a new disease: the «psychosis of current events».

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    • Puerperal insanity

      The topicality of cases of infanticide invites us to question the historical origin of the madness of motherhood.

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    • Quiet Revolution

      In 1961, the publication of an ex-internee’s memoir instigated a mental health policy reform in the State of Quebec.

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    • Radicalisation and psychiatry

      The lumping together of mental illness and radicalisation leads to negating the latter’s implication in individual and collective history

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    • Rare diseases

      The category of “rare diseases” was born of the interactions between authorities, patients and the pharmaceutical industry following a consolidation of US pharmaceutical legislation.

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    • Social paediatrics



      Social paediatrics aim to think of child health holistically, within its environment and to act socially. Social paediatrics aim to think of child health holistically, within its environment and to act...

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    • Speculum

      Gynaecological abuse has its history. A lookback on the growth in speculum use.

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    • Subtle energies

      "Subtle energies" is a key term in today’s alternative medicine. It plays a central role in the area of energy healing, which includes therapies such as acupuncture, Reiki, Pranic Healing, and Therapeutic Touch.

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    • Sugar

      The relationship to sugar in our society is sustainably anchored on a difference between genders.

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    • Syringe

      The appearance of new syringe models in the 1850s questions the conditions of the development of medical techniques.

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    • Tattoos

      A body enhancing aesthetic practice, tattooing pertained, in the 19th century, to the world of crime and social deviance.

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    • Teleconsultations in mental health

      The health crisis linked to the Covid-19 epidemic has given a new impetus to the development of mental health care provision via teleconsultations.

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    • Telemedicine

      The Covid-19 pandemic finds us revisiting an ancient practice: telemedicine.

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    • Telemedicine and Covid-19

      Does the Covid-19 health crisis mark the advent of telemedicine in our societies?

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    • The Blind

      The Great War marked a second turning point in the history of social policies towards the blind.

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    • The Corset

      Devised to control the female body, the corset has had, between the 18th and the 20th century, many detractors.

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    • The Stomach

      Knowledge of the interconnection of the gut and psyche has a longer history than scientists often admit.

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    • The suitcases of Willard State Hospital (New-York)

      Suitcases as symbols of the struggle for dignity and civil rights of people with mental illnesses

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    • Tobacco control

      Tobacco control, for all that it serves unquestionable health purposes, remains steeped in political issues

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    • Truth serum



      The truth serum is not just a fantasy, the stuff of science-fiction, it is also a political and medical instrument.Screenshot from Franju, La Tête contre les murs. The truth serum is not just a fantasy...

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    • Vegetarianism

      Around 1900, a vegetarian movement was organized in France to resolve the social question.

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    • Yoga

      Can an Eastern spiritual practice become a Western health practice without betraying itself?

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    • Zombies

      In Haïti, some individuals come back to life whereas they had been declared dead then inhumed.

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