HIST 249 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Soho, Cordon Sanitaire, John Snow
24 Mar 2016
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All societies collectively organize to protect against health dangers to populations. Endemic diseases (ie tb, typhoid fever) not sudden bursts but always present. Diseases related to social conditions: occupation, physical environment, social environment (poverty, inequalities of power, but few public health programs have been built around it) Dangerous practices, behaviors: collective e. g. food supply, prostitution. Increasingly individual behavior e. g. infant hygiene, tobacco, obesity. What constitutes health danger requiring collective response? (e. g. ebola, bike accidents) Each response involves uncertainty, risks, discomfort for someone (anger, pain, money, etc) Historical tendency has been to constantly expand the scope of public health. More things that we do in our society are somehow in the scope of public health and involve some regulation. They often make people do thi(cid:374)gs that they do(cid:374)"t (cid:449)a(cid:374)t to do. Public health is often driven by non-medical interests, but often produces medicalized responses. Relationship between public health and clinical medicine is complex, often tense and fraught.
