Monographic Volume 23 (2003) |
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THE HEALTH OF CHILDREN IN MODERN HISTORY. EPISODES FOR EMBEDDING SCIENCE, CULTURE AND POLITICS
Guest Editors Esteban Rodríguez-Ocaña |
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Laurinda Abreu . The Évora foundlings between the 16th an the 19th Century: The portuguese public welfare system under analysis. Dynamis, 2003, 23.
Summary
1.—The phenomenon of the abandoned children. 2.—Conditions and results of children abandonment. 3.—The number of abandoned children. 4.—The Évora foundlings. 5.—Conclusion.
Abstract
By the beginning of the 16th century, the Portuguese State imposed on local powers the obligation to bring up and take care of foundlings. However, with the creation of the Misericórdia fraternities all over the country, the municipalities transferred the assistance of the children to these charities, with the promise of economic support. Nonetheless, in spite of the State «interest», the concern of local powers and the care provided by the Misericórdias, the results for the children were tragic. In this paper I intend to provide a summary of the welfare services for foundlings in Portugal, and to study the assistance afforded them in the city of Évora.
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Rosa Ballester Añon y Enrique Perdiguero Gil. Science and ideology in studies on human growth in France and Spain (1900-1950). Dynamis, 2003, 23.
Summary
Summary 1.—Introduction. 1.1.—Historical study of height in human populations. 1.2.—The secular tendency of height on the Western world and hypotheses on its determinants. 2.—Study sources, background and objectives. 3.—Growth in French and Spanish medical sources. Comparative analysis. 3.1.—Two different paths. 3.2.—Studies on growth in French and Spanish paediatrics in the first half of the 20th century 3.2.1.—Concern about euthanasia and health struggles in the inter-war period. 3.2.2.—Political differences and the distinct uses of French and Spanish studies after the World War II. 4.—Conclusion.
Abstract
Abstract The comparative analysis of human growth studies based on French and Spanish medical literature and other sources published during the first half of the 20th Century allows us to show the ideological uses of a supposedly objective science. Analysis of the writings published in the two countries is an appropriate method to reconstruct the different trends in human growth studies, given the diverse scientific, social, political and ideological variables.
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Walter Bruchhausen. «Practising hygiene and fighting the natives’ disease». Public health and child health in German East Africa and Tanganyka territory, 1900-1960. Dynamis, 2003, 23.
Summary
1.—The infant as emerging medical issue: Population policy and public health. Population growth or decline? 1.1.—Infant mortality by harmful baby feeding? 1.2.—«Practising hygiene and fighting the natives' diseases». 2.—The development of child health services. 2.1.—Early child health care under German rule: Government and missions. 2.2.—The training of Africans in child care under British rule. 2.2.1.—The first attempt after World War I. 2.2.2.—The second attempt after World War I. 2.3.— Child care, local people and European judgements.
Abstract
For reasons of population policy and missionary strategies, childcare was a relatively early issue of colonial medical policy and services in East Africa. The main challenge for the adaptation of biomedicine to the local situation proved to be not so much schemes for treatment or prevention, but rather the question of staffing. Education and employment of females, as well as social acceptance and keeping up professional standards of biomedically trained personnel, posed major obstacles to the implementation of governmental health policies. In addition to these obstacles, European prejudices about African disinterest in child health contributed to the feeling that limited progress had been made after 50 years of biomedical efforts to improve African child health.
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James A. Gillespie. International organizations and the problem of child health. Dynamis, 2003, 23.
Summary
1.—Models of intervention in the interwar years. 2.—International relief and post war reconstruction. 3.—International health and the politics of institutional design. 4.—UNICEF and supply driven policy. 5.—Conclusion.
Abstract
Faced with planning mass relief campaigns in liberated Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration relied heavily on cheap supplies of skimmed milk from surplus production in northern Europe. The success of this approach swept aside more detailed planning around restoring national maternal and children’s health services. This reliance on mass feeding continued into the post-war years. UNICEF, the agency with the most substantial financial resources, continued this supply-driven approach despite growing reservations by nutritionists in its rival agencies —the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Health Organization.
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Catherine Rollet. History of the health notebook in France: A stake for mothers, doctors and state. Dynamis, 2003, 23.
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—An idea of Fonssagrives to trace a family medical genealogy. 3.—Medical booklets, notebooks and files: expansion of initiatives. 4.—What did the mothers make with these booklets? 5.—The involvement of public health.
Abstract
The health notebook is a booklet distributed in France to mothers for making notes about the growth and health events of their children. The physicians who first adopted this initiative thought that mothers would be the best link between themselves and the health of babies. The oldest example discussed here came from a Montpellier medical doctor (1869). Many other initiatives followed until the Second World War. At the beginning of the 20th century, public health authorities became interested in this booklet as an instrument of control of the population’s health. The idea of making this health notebook compulsory was implemented in 1945. Since 1970, it has included three health certificates signed by a physician. Therefore, families, doctors and State have all come to have a stake in the health notebook.
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