[Health instead of gallantry: a paradigm shift in physician's beauty advice in the century of enlightenment].
The views of femininity and the attempts to standardise it, developed in the 18th century in philosophy, education, literature, theology, anthropology and medicine, have led to intense research in the last years. Such research normally starts with the Enlightenment debates in the second half of the 18th century, but there are interesting sources which allow the tracing of a development over a longer period and which had a wider contemporary readership than any scholarly treatise. These are the popular beauty manuals, which in the German-speaking area started to appear more frequently from the late 17th century on, composed chiefly by physicians who thereby hoped to profit from the growing book and healthcare market. The present article considers the approaches of physicians to female beauty, with special reference to the discontinuities caused by the Enlightenment.
Sander
Sabine
S
Medizinhistorisches Institut, Universität Mainz, Am Pulverturm 13, D-55131 Mainz. sander@mail.uni-mainz.de
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001319:Authorship; D001505:Beauty Culture / Q000266:history*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D005858:Germany; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans; D008370:Manuals as Topic; D010820:Physicians / Q000266:history*; D012922:Social Change / Q000266:history*; D012951:Socialization