Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: constructing international health between the wars
- 2 ‘Custodians of the sacred fire’: the ICRC and the postwar reorganisation of the International Red Cross
- 3 Red Cross organisational politics, 1918–1922: relations of dominance and the influence of the United States
- 4 The League of Nations Health Organisation
- 5 Assistance and not mere relief: the Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923
- 6 Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
- 7 Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
- 8 The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations
- 9 ‘Uncramping child life’: international children's organisations, 1914–1939
- 10 The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation: the Russell years, 1920–1934
- 11 The cycles of eradication: the Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American public health, 1918–1940
- 12 The Pasteur Institutes between the two world wars. The transformation of the international sanitary order
- 13 Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period
- 14 Mental hygiene as an international movement
- 15 Mobilising social knowledge for social welfare: intermediary institutions in the political systems of the United States and Great Britain between the First and Second World Wars
- Index
- Cambridge History of Medicine
7 - Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Notes on the contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: constructing international health between the wars
- 2 ‘Custodians of the sacred fire’: the ICRC and the postwar reorganisation of the International Red Cross
- 3 Red Cross organisational politics, 1918–1922: relations of dominance and the influence of the United States
- 4 The League of Nations Health Organisation
- 5 Assistance and not mere relief: the Epidemic Commission of the League of Nations, 1920–1923
- 6 Wireless wars in the eastern arena: epidemiological surveillance, disease prevention and the work of the Eastern Bureau of the League of Nations Health Organisation, 1925–1942
- 7 Social medicine at the League of Nations Health Organisation and the International Labour Office compared
- 8 The Social Section and Advisory Committee on Social Questions of the League of Nations
- 9 ‘Uncramping child life’: international children's organisations, 1914–1939
- 10 The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation: the Russell years, 1920–1934
- 11 The cycles of eradication: the Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American public health, 1918–1940
- 12 The Pasteur Institutes between the two world wars. The transformation of the international sanitary order
- 13 Internationalising nursing education during the interwar period
- 14 Mental hygiene as an international movement
- 15 Mobilising social knowledge for social welfare: intermediary institutions in the political systems of the United States and Great Britain between the First and Second World Wars
- Index
- Cambridge History of Medicine
Summary
The problem of social medicine: radical reform or authoritarian interventionism?
The aftermath of the First World War saw a transition from the control of epidemic, infectious diseases to international endeavours promoting social medicine. It was hoped that international peace could be underpinned by alleviation of social deprivation and injustice: effective health and welfare services were intended to stabilise the existence of new states and modernise administrative structures. State administrations adopted ambitious plans to extend social welfare provisions; and a private sector that had been heavily engaged in war relief work attempted to shift the basis of voluntary care away from philanthropic aid, and towards tackling the scientific roots of poverty and disease. The new priority given to maternal and child health, and to the prevention of chronic degenerative diseases (notably tuberculosis and certain sexually transmitted diseases) was linked to a range of demographic and social issues. Visionary schemes promoted innovative concepts of positive health and diverse concepts of ‘social hygiene’, ‘social medicine’ and of a healthy ‘human economy’. Clinical medicine was to be ‘reconstructed through social science’, and the organisation of medical care was to be collectivised by state and municipal public health physicians superintending polyclinics and public hospitals.
Whatever the prevailing political system, there was an international consensus among public health experts that the collectivisation of health care should look to advances in biological and social sciences.
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- Information
- International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939 , pp. 134 - 153Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995
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