title: [Illnesses and diseases in history: usefulness of their study for contemporary medicine and public health].
abstract: History of illnesses and diseases contributes to the study of pathological phenomena, for it provides data on their dynamics, their emergence and spread, and their relationships with the physical and human environment. It also shed light on how states or conditions have been labeled as "diseases", and questions the universality of pathological categories used by medicine. Like cross-cultural studies, research on ancient medical writings allows to identify consistent as well as variable expressions of illnesses ; this may in turn allow to discriminate whether pathogenesis is based mainly on a biological nature or on a socio-cultural nature. We will describe case studies from the eighteenth-century in France to illustrate the usefulness of studying history of illnesses and diseases for contemporary medicine and public health.
authors: Université Paris Descartes, École pratique des hautes études, Hôtel Dieu, 1, place du parvis Notre Dame, 75004 Paris, France.
authors: Joël
authors: J
authors: Coste
mesh_terms: D015709:Correspondence as Topic / Q000266:history; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004194:Disease / Q000266:history*; D005602:France; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health / Q000266:history*