At the start of the nineteenth century consumption, also called "phthysis", was one of the most dreaded illnesses along with cancer. The term usually referred to the widespread "pulmonary consumption". Metaphorical descriptions of the disease demonstrate the strong cultural significance attached to this medical, and also lay-medical, concept. Based on handwritten case histories and letters from Kaiserswerth deaconesses in the first half of the nineteenth century the author establishes the cultural implications with which sufferers met in the social practice. Consumption was seen as the visible manifestation of deviance. It was assumed that sufferers were also to blame for contracting the disease due to a lifestyle that was "excessive" in dietetic as well as Christian terms. The paper aims to analyze how the attribution of an "immoral" and "sinful" lifestyle was presented to sufferers by physicians and nurses and how this affected them. The attribution of moral implications to dietetic concepts -- as the first thesis of the paper will suggest -- originated from demographically motivated health policies prevalent around 1800. The paper will further try to show how, in the early nineteenth century, the idea arose that consumption was the disease of the proletariat suffering from metropolitan life.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Dross, Fritz;
(2011)
Vom zuverlässigen Urteilen
(/isis/citation/CBB001420790/)
Book
Phillips, Howard;
(2012)
Epidemics: The Story of South Africa's Five Most Lethal Human Diseases
(/isis/citation/CBB001421023/)
Article
Ortega Martos, Antonio Miguel;
(2010)
¿Colonialismo biomédico o autonomía de lo local? Sanadores tradicionales contra la tuberculosis
(/isis/citation/CBB001420476/)
Thesis
Polu, Sandhya Lakshmi;
(2009)
The Perception of Risk: Policy-Making on Infectious Disease in India (1892--1940)
(/isis/citation/CBB001562846/)
Article
Arner, Katherine;
(2013)
Making Global Commerce into International Health Diplomacy: Consuls and Disease Control in the Age of Revolutions
(/isis/citation/CBB001201444/)
Book
Boeckl, Christine M.;
(2011)
Images of Leprosy: Disease, Religion and Politics in European Art
(/isis/citation/CBB001201856/)
Thesis
Wolford, Kathryn;
(2012)
Infective Discourse: Printed Debates Concerning the Spread of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England
(/isis/citation/CBB001567364/)
Book
Elma Brenner;
François-Olivier Touati;
(2021)
Leprosy and identity in the Middle Ages: From England to the Mediterranean
(/isis/citation/CBB649477897/)
Article
Erica Charters;
(2022)
Information, Expertise, and Authority: The Many Ends of Epidemics
(/isis/citation/CBB065074924/)
Article
Kazanjian, Powel;
(2014)
The AIDS Pandemic in Historic Perspective
(/isis/citation/CBB001420763/)
Article
Cunha, Vivian da Silva;
(2010)
Isolados “como nós” ou isolados “entre nós”?: a polêmica na Academia Nacional de Medicina sobre o isolamento compulsório dos doentes de lepra
(/isis/citation/CBB001420478/)
Article
Barreras, Ricardo E.;
Torruella, Rafael A.;
(2013)
New York City's Struggle over Syringe Exchange: A Case Study of the Intersection of Science, Activism, and Political Change
(/isis/citation/CBB001500432/)
Article
Hähner-Rombach, Sylvelyn;
(2014)
Anforderungen in der ambulanten Versorgung: Das Beispiel der Tuberkulosefürsorgerinnen im ersten Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts
(/isis/citation/CBB001421916/)
Chapter
Domenico Roccolo;
(2023)
Confraternite e malati a Roma nell'età moderna
(/isis/citation/CBB551431790/)
Book
David Gentilcore;
Matthew Smith;
(2018)
Proteins, Pathologies and Politics: Dietary Innovation and Disease from the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB880825514/)
Article
Almeida, Maria Antónia Pires de;
(2014)
As epidemias nas notícias em Portugal: cólera, peste, tifo, gripe e varíola, 1854--1918
(/isis/citation/CBB001420729/)
Article
Alcalá Ferráez, Carlos;
(2012)
De miasmas a mosquitos: el pensamiento médico sobre la fiebre amarilla en Yucatán, 1890--1920
(/isis/citation/CBB001420572/)
Article
Álvarez, Adriana;
(2010)
La experiencia de ser un 'niño débil y enfermo' lejos de su hogar: el caso del Asilo Marítimo, Mar del Plata (1893--1920)
(/isis/citation/CBB001420440/)
Article
Nunes, Everardo Duarte;
(2012)
Henry Mayhew: jornalista, investigador social e precursor da pesquisa qualitativa
(/isis/citation/CBB001420604/)
Article
Carey, Mark;
(2014)
Climate, Medicine, and Peruvian Health Resorts
(/isis/citation/CBB001421215/)
Be the first to comment!