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What have been the roles of charities and the state in supporting medical provision? These are issues of major relevance, as the assumptions and practices of the welfare state are increasingly thrown into doubt. This title offers a broad perspective on the relationship between charity and medicine in Western Europe, up to the advent of welfare states in the 20th century. Through detailed case studies, the authors highlight significant differences between Britain, France, Italy and Germany, and offer a critical vocabulary for grasping the issues raised. This volume reflects recent developments relating to the role of charity in medicine, particularly the revival of interest in the place of voluntary provision in contemporary social policy. It emphasizes the changing balance of "care" and "cure" as the aim of medical charity, and shows how economic and political factors influenced the various forms of charity.
List of contents
INTRODUCTION 1 IMAGINING MEDIEVAL HOSPITALS: CONSIDERATIONS ON THE CULTURAL MEANING OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE 2 HEALING THE POOR: HOSPITALS AND MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IN RENAISSANCE FLORENCE 3 THE MOTIVATIONS OF BENEFACTORS: AN OVERVIEW OF APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF CHARITY 4 ‘HARDLY A HOSPITAL, BUT A CHARITY FOR PAUPER LUNATICS’? THERAPEUTICS AT BETHLEM IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 5 TWO MEDICAL CHARITIES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LONDON: THE LOCK HOSPITAL AND THE LYING-IN CHARITY FOR MARRIED WOMEN 6 THE SOCIETE DE CHARITE MATERNELLE, 1788–1815 7 URBAN GROWTH AND MEDICAL CHARITY: HAMBURG 1788–1815 8 THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF CARING: NURSING CHARITIES, c.1830–c.1860 9 LAY AND MEDICAL CONCEPTIONS OF MEDICAL CHARITY DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: THE CASE OF THE HUDDERSFIELD GENERAL DISPENSARY AND INFIRMARY 10 THE FUNCTION AND MALFUNCTION OF MUTUAL AID SOCIETIES IN NINETEENTH[1]CENTURY FRANCE 11 THE MODERNIZATION OF CHARITY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE AND GERMANY 12 GOVERNMENT AND CHARITY IN THE DISTRESSED MINING AREAS OF ENGLAND AND WALES, 1928–30 13 THE ACHES OF INDUSTRY: PHILANTHROPY AND RHEUMATISM IN INTER-WAR BRITAIN
About the author
Jonathan Barry is a Lecturer in the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Exeter. He works on the social and cultural history of early modern England, especially provincial urban culture, and is currently revising his Ph.D thesis on Bristol for publication by Oxford University Press. He has published a number of essays, several on medical history, and edited The Tudor and Stuart Town: A Reader (1990) and, with Joseph Melling, Culture in History (1992). Colin Jones is Professor of History at Exeter University. His books include Charity and Bienfaisance: The Treatment of the Poor in the Montpellier Region 1740-1815 (1982), The Longman Companion to the French Revolution (1988) and The Charitable Imperative: Hospitals and Nursing in Ancien Régime and Revolutionary France (1989).
Summary
This volume offers a broad perspective on the relationship between charity and medicine in Western Europe up to the advent of welfare states in the twentieth century.
