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Time: 15 hours
Level: Intermediate
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 Introduction Resource- Access to healthcare is important to all of us. Did the arrival of state medicine in the twentieth century mean that everyone had access to good medical services? If you fell sick in 1930 where could you...
| | | | | 1 Access to Health Care, 1880–1930
- 1 Access to Health Care, 1880–1930 Resource
- The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have often been described as a period of progress, when the poorer classes gained access to a whole range of medical services previously reserved for the...
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- 2 Patterns of disease Resource
- Before looking at how people dealt with ill health, you need to know what sort of medical conditions were prevalent. Between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, all over Europe, the prevailing pattern...
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- 3.1 Introduction Resource
- Surrounded by the ever-present threat of ill health, not surprisingly, people expended a good deal of time and energy on trying to stay well. The late nineteenth century saw a new emphasis on promoting...
- 3.2 Health and wealth Resource
- While all classes regarded good health as desirable, access to various means of preserving or promoting it varied according to economic circumstances. For the upper and middle classes, with substantial...
- 3.3 Hygiene Resource
- Good hygiene – a clean home and a clean body – would also appear to have been available to all classes, but again, it was easier for the wealthier classes to achieve these goals. Newer houses, with bathrooms...
- 3.4 Health and the working class Resource
- However, for a large proportion of the population, altering diet, clothing or behaviour in the pursuit of better health was well nigh impossible. The working classes, who made up the vast majority of the...
- 3.5 The health of mothers and children Resource
- The health of mothers and infants was one target for action. France was among the first to introduce infant welfare schemes, as low birth rates, high infant mortality and defeat in the Franco-Prussian...
- 3.6 Health education Resource
- The poor were not the only targets of health education. Campaigns against tuberculosis and venereal disease were aimed at all classes. Advice was dispensed through exhibitions, lectures, classes, posters,...
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- 4 Domestic care Resource
- Despite their best efforts, everyone fell ill at some point in their lives. Although historians of medicine write a great deal about how the sick were cared for by doctors and in hospitals, in the past...
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- 5.1 Introduction Resource
- When people did seek help for their ailments, most sought some form of outpatient care. For the upper and middle classes, during much of the nineteenth century, this meant calling in a general practitioner....
- 5.2 General practitioners Resource
- General practitioners were the backbone of medical services. They dealt with almost every sort of complaint, from the serious to the trivial. Although it is often assumed that previous generations were...
- 5.3 Irregular and unorthodox practitioners Resource
- In the twentieth century, unlicensed practitioners continued to be an important source of medical advice. Faced with illness, people of all classes consulted relatives, neighbours with a reputation for...
- 5.4 Clinics and outpatient services Resource
- In addition to acquiring greater access to general practitioners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, poor patients also received more medical help from the outpatient departments of charitable...
- 5.5 Nurses, district nurses and midwives Resource
- While access to GPs and outpatient services was growing, access to nursing care was expanding in some sectors and declining in others. The numbers of trained professional nurses who were employed in wealthy...
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- 6 Hospital care Resource
- In most aspects of medical care, the rich generally enjoyed better access to medical services and better-quality services than the poor. The only exception to this rule was hospital care. In the nineteenth...
| | | | | 7 Conclusion: the medicalisation of society?
- 7.1 A review Resource
- All the evidence you have looked at so far suggests that historians are right to see a ‘medicalisation’ of society in the sense that when ill, people were more likely to consult a qualified medical practitioner...
- 7.2 The public take control Resource
- There is also good evidence which suggests that the public took control over their own health by choosing not to seek medical help, or by rejecting offers of help and treatment (Figure 10).
- 7.3 Childbirth Resource
- One aspect of life which is often seen as having been ‘medicalised’ in the twentieth century is that of childbirth. Historians argue that until the nineteenth century, pregnancy and birth were dealt with...
| | | | | References and Acknowledgements | | |
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