Preliminary Programme

Wed 23 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 24 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 17.30

Fri 25 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 26 April
    8.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

All days
Go back

Wednesday 23 April 2014 14.00 - 16.00
ZD-3 HEA17 Facing Diseases
Prominentenzimmer
Network: Health and Environment Chair: Josep Lluís Barona
Organizers: - Discussant: Josep Lluís Barona
Iris Borowy : International Politics, Aid and Health: What for German Medical Development Aid?
Development aid typically entails a mixture of political, economic and humanitarian considerations which are often difficult to disentangle. This is especially true for its medical component, which purports to help save lives and improve physical well-being. This paper argues that German medical development aid after World War II represents a ... (Show more)
Development aid typically entails a mixture of political, economic and humanitarian considerations which are often difficult to disentangle. This is especially true for its medical component, which purports to help save lives and improve physical well-being. This paper argues that German medical development aid after World War II represents a particularly complicated case of interlocking, complementary and contradictory motivations and aims.

To begin with, German medical development aid was located between relatively stable national foreign policy goals, on the one hand, and an international health scene, which was very much in flux, on the other. Like in other countries, German medical development aid was rooted in pre-war imperialist thinking, which partly carried into the post-war world. After 1945, German foreign was dominated by Cold War considerations, and medical development aid in both German countries had to serve overriding aims of gaining a profile vis-à-vis the “other” Germany. This objective increasingly tied into the goal of furthering German economic interests by winning and strengthening partnerships with emerging countries in the South. At the same time, German activities did not exist in an international vacuum but had to fit into rapidly evolving international constructions of development strategies, shifting from approaches of “take-off”, “basic needs”, “primary health care” to “structural adjustment” and “global health”.

Policy approaches were further complicated by the multiplicity of actors and world views. Medical development aid was carried out by state, church and civil society institutions, each sector having its own agenda. And even within one sector, ideological differences abounded, such as, notoriously, between the progressive, grass-roots oriented deutscher Entwicklungsdienst and the conservative Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit, which focused on consultations of governments. However, emerging evidence suggests that the relationship between the various sectors also contained an element of informal cooperation, as actors in the field may have distributed tasks according to compatibility with the rationale of respective institutions.

The paper explores how selected actors in German medical development aid maneuvered in a complicated network of different policy goals and expectations during between ca. 1950 and the early 1980s.


(Show less)

Staffan Förhammar, Marie Clark Nelson : Preventing Disability: Motivating the Treatment of Non-pulmonary Tuberculosis in the Early Twentieth Century
The struggle against tuberculosis in western society gained momentum in the decades around the turn of the century 1900 and continued in the first part of the 20th century, although the disease has a long history and had reached its apogee some decades earlier. The literature (both historical fact, as ... (Show more)
The struggle against tuberculosis in western society gained momentum in the decades around the turn of the century 1900 and continued in the first part of the 20th century, although the disease has a long history and had reached its apogee some decades earlier. The literature (both historical fact, as well as fiction) deals almost exclusively with lung tuberculosis, leaving other forms of the disease in obscurity. But 20-30 percent of its victims (and largely children) suffered from non-pulmonary variations of the disease that might attack the skeletal system, joints, skin or lymphatic system. These forms were particularly common among children, and, if they survived, they might be afflicted with life-long disabilities. On the continent, as an extension of some of the types of treatment used for pulmonary forms, non-pulmonary tuberculosis was treated in special sanatoria that concentrated on treatment that nature could provide.
Doctors in Norway and Denmark began to study the treatment found on the continent and the British Isles and in the late 1800’s began to build sanatoria for treatment. Sweden soon followed its Nordic counterparts and established three major sanatoria on the west coast of the country, Styrsö (1890), Vejbystrand (1900) and Apelviken (1902). The treatment these sanatoria offered was primarily based on the sun, wind and water treatments found in their continental predecessors, supplemented by nourishing diets and appropriate exercise.
Digging beneath the surface, however, reveals more than just the “heroic tale” of a forgotten struggle against disease. Here lurk the political cures of the early 20th century with messages of equality and the solution of the “social question” provided through governmental intervention; the scientific struggles between various phalanxes of the medical corps that involved not only types of treatment, but also matters of prestige and professional conflicts; the influence of ideas associated with concepts of holistic medicine that permeated some of the medical debates; and the debates concerning hygiene, some of which resulted in the growth of concepts of eugenics. A focus on preventing disability fed conflicts between parts of the medical profession and the growing orthopedic treatment. These sanatoria and their supporters provide a stage on which the ideologies of the time played out their various roles in the midst of the burgeoning welfare state.
The study is based on a wide range of archival sources from the regional and national archives, as well as annual reports, contemporary medical journals, and governmental reports and papers. The entire project (initially sponsored by the Swedish Research Council) has resulted in a book that should be finished by the time the conference takes place.
(Show less)

Helene Laurent : Diphtheria, World War II and German Occupation
The paper will examine the connection of war and the diphtheria pandemic started in 1941.
In the prevaccine era, diphtheria was a dreaded, highly endemic childhood disease found in temperate climates. Despite a gradual decline in deaths in most industrialized countries in the early 20th century associated with improving living ... (Show more)
The paper will examine the connection of war and the diphtheria pandemic started in 1941.
In the prevaccine era, diphtheria was a dreaded, highly endemic childhood disease found in temperate climates. Despite a gradual decline in deaths in most industrialized countries in the early 20th century associated with improving living standards, diphtheria remained one of the leading causes of childhood death. Vaccine against diphtheria was developed in the 1920s and was widely used in Canada and the U.S.A. However, in Europe its introduction was belated and it was still sparsely applied in the 1930s.
The onset of World War II catalyzed the last diphtheria pandemic in Western industrialized countries with over one million cases, starting in 1941 in Germany. The Netherlands, Denmark and Norway suffered severe epidemics following occupation of German soldiers, Norway being the most intensely infected country. Even in the neutral Sweden the incidence of diphtheria increased in 1944 four times from the pre-war level. Great Britain launched in 1940 a national campaign for the immunization of children against diphtheria, and the continental epidemic never reached Great Britain.
The reasons for the last pandemic were most likely a combination of epidemic cycle, war with the movement of military troops, paralysis of the local public health system and a lowered immunity of the population due to crowding and insufficient nutrition.
Finland, not occupied but having close contact with German soldiers, also experienced a grave diphtheria epidemic starting in 1943. Between 1943 and 1945 altogether 54 000 persons, mostly children, contracted diphtheria and 3 000 lost their lives. A massive voluntary inoculation campaign was initiated in September 1943 with vaccines purchased from Germany, Italy and Hungary. Approximately 400 000 children between 1 and 15 years were immunized. The epidemic subsided after the war, mainly due to mass preventive measures as well as improved general circumstances. The vaccination campaign was well received by the public and paved the way for the complex immunization programs for infants and pre-school children started in the 1950s.
The Finnish diphtheria epidemic will be analyzed and compared to other European countries. The role of German military troops in spreading the epidemic in Finland will also be discussed.
(Show less)



Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer