title: [Race and medicine].
abstract: In this article, I argue that the problematic of "race and medicine", which has been the object of many recent debates, has a long history that it may be useful to understand better. I show more specifically that, from the very first uses of the concept of "race" in natural history during the XVIII(th) century, medical concepts and analogies served as important models. These medical models were especially useful to analyze "races" as alterations from an original identity. Different analogies are studied here. 1. The analogy between races' peculiar temperaments and morbid alterations of human constitution. 2. The analogy between the transmission of the alterations along generations and hereditary diseases. In this second analogy, I differentiate between two models: the degeneration of the human type and the transmission of a molecular alteration of one character.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire SPHERE (UMR7219)/ Centre Canguilhem, Université Paris VII, 207, rue La Fayette, 75010 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Claude-Olivier
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Doron
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000266:history / Q000639:trends; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000208:ethnology; D014644:Genetic Variation / Q000502:physiology; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D016045:Human Genome Project; D006801:Humans; D040582:Inheritance Patterns / Q000235:genetics; D008511:Medicine / Q000639:trends*; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000235:genetics / Q000266:history