The citizen-patient in revolutionary and imperial Paris - Weiner

In this work, Weiner examines the experiences of the sick and handicapped indigent men, women and children in Paris during the French Revolution and Empire. Weiner argues that significant groups of Revolutionary physicians and reformers interpreted "equality" to include every citizen's right to health care. These reformers faced political, religious and professional opposition and daunting problems of funding. And they needed the participation of the poor as "citizen-patients", patients with both rights and duties, who acted as responsible partners in the pursuit and maintenance of public and personal health.;While limiting her discussion to Paris, Weiner argues that events in the capital shaped those in France. She surveys the 20,000 patients institutionalized in 20 Paris hospitals and hospices and explains how the Revolution changed the status and work of nurses, pharmacists, midwives, students and doctors. The requirements of clinical teaching entailed architectural renovations, as well as greater attention to hygiene and in-patient comfort. Triage assigned applicants to hospitals in a municipal health-care network with special facilities for surgery, childbirth, paediatrics, venereal diseases and mental illness. Out-patient facilities as an alternative to hospitalization began to attract citizen-patients, and experience in the Napoleonic Wars spurred developments in public health. Weiner emphasizes health care for children - the newborn, abandoned or orphaned; and the deaf and the blind. She underscores the role of women as administrators, as well as dispensers of hospital care.;Integrating the social history of medicine into the general history of the French Revolution, this book adds a new, medical facet to the meaning of "equality", while at the same time broadening the medical history of the Revolution by paying attention to the social history of the patient.