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Wed 30 March
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Thu 31 March
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Fri 1 April
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    14.00 - 16.00
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Sat 2 April
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Wednesday 30 March 2016 11.00 - 13.00
M-2 HEA02 Bodies and Health: State and Non-State Actors’s (ca. 1850 to the Present) II: Social Hygiene, Prostitution and Venereal Diseases
Aula 10, Nivel 1
Networks: Health and Environment , Sexuality Chair: Ignacio Suay-Matallana
Organizers: Josep Lluís Barona, Magaly Rodríguez García, Peter Scholliers Discussant: Tenna Jensen
Josep Lluís Barona : The Emergence of Venereal Diseases in the International Agenda (ca. 1900)
Since the late nineteenth century health authorities became increasingly aware of the epidemiological, social and economic importance of venereal diseases, and particularly of syphilis. Medicine tried to focus the identification in accordance with the new bacteriological techniques. At the same time preventive national policies usually shaped under the concept of ... (Show more)
Since the late nineteenth century health authorities became increasingly aware of the epidemiological, social and economic importance of venereal diseases, and particularly of syphilis. Medicine tried to focus the identification in accordance with the new bacteriological techniques. At the same time preventive national policies usually shaped under the concept of public health and social medicine then expanded in the form of sanitary campaigns, anti-venereal dispensaries, asylums, boosting as well laboratory research. Along with tuberculosis and infant mortality, venereal diseases became main sanitary problem considering its prevalence. For instance, statistics estimated that in 1900 in Paris around 16 per cent of the population was infected with syphilis. Most of the patients ended in psychiatric asylums affected by neurologic and psychiatric symptoms, something characteristic of the last period of evolution of the disease. At the same time, scientific debate on heritability stayed open.

This paper analyzes the medical and political debates that took place in the first two international conferences on prophylaxis of syphilis and venereal diseases, held in Paris (1900) and Brussels (1902). It also will take into account national reports, statistics and Spanish educational materials.
Main points for historical analysis are:
1. Epidemiological assessment
2. Scientific and moral arguments
3. Social images of sexually transmitted diseases
4. Public health strategies

Main sources are the proceedings of international conferences, educational materials such as posters and films. (Show less)

Ramón Castejón-Bolea : Access to Penicillin for the Treatment of Syphilis in Spain in the 1950´s: the Role of the International Agencies
Aims
From 1951, when Spain joined the WHO, and throughout the following decade, technical assistance projects were given to the Spanish government, in order to control venereal diseases, by the WHO and UNICEF. The aim of my paper is to analyse the role played by these two international health organisations in ... (Show more)
Aims
From 1951, when Spain joined the WHO, and throughout the following decade, technical assistance projects were given to the Spanish government, in order to control venereal diseases, by the WHO and UNICEF. The aim of my paper is to analyse the role played by these two international health organisations in the 1950´s in the access to penicillin for the treatment of syphilis in pregnant women and children as well as the commitments made by the Spanish government regarding the control of venereal diseases.

Methods
The sources we have used are publications and reports by the Spanish health authorities (National Fight against Venereal Diseases Organisation), debates which took place in the Royal Academy of Medicine, and the reports made by the Director-General to the World Health Assembly (1951, 1952, 1957, 1960). We have analysed both the agreements and technical assistance programmes which established penicillin supplies and the commitments made in exchange regarding the control of venereal diseases by the Spanish government with the international agencies, placing them in the Spanish health and socio-political context of the period.

Results
Among the agreements reached by the Spanish government with the WHO and UNICEF during the 1950´s, a supply of penicillin with aluminium monostearate (a component which when combined with procaine-penicillin allowed it to be absorbed more slowly and, therefore, provided a delayed and prolonged action) was established for the treatment of pregnant women and children. Similarly, within these agreements it was established that the international organisations would supply material and equipment to develop the Serology Laboratory established in Barcelona. The Spanish government made a commitment to the WHO and UNICEF to carry out research into the prevalence of syphilis on a national scale, through surveys on seroprevalence. These surveys, supported by the international organisations, formed part of the strengthening of the epidemiological surveillance systems which was taking place in the country. In 1958, through the Regulation for the Fight against Leprosy, Venereal Diseases and Dermatosis of the 4th July, it was established that all cases of early syphilis should be treated with delayed-action penicillin preparations which should meet the conditions required by the WHO. (Show less)

Anne Hanley : Sexual Health and the State: State-Supported Healthcare Provisions for Venereal Diseases in England, 1918-1939
The historical narrative of twentieth-century healthcare is one of supposed discontinuity between older draconian provisions and the emergence in 1948 of an unprecedented and enlightened system of state-supported care. This paper will show that the early NHS was not such a radically new venture but one of continuity that built ... (Show more)
The historical narrative of twentieth-century healthcare is one of supposed discontinuity between older draconian provisions and the emergence in 1948 of an unprecedented and enlightened system of state-supported care. This paper will show that the early NHS was not such a radically new venture but one of continuity that built upon existing state-supported provisions. It will do this by examining the unprecedented series of recommendations for the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of venereal diseases following the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases in 1916. The emerging network of diagnostic and therapeutic facilities for venereal diseases was the first universally- available healthcare system in the UK that was free at the point of use. Yet with the exception of Roger Davidson’s work on the social history of venereal diseases in interwar Scotland, this important network of health provisions has not formed the subject of extended and detailed historical study. This paper undertakes this study, examining how legislative changes and diagnostic and therapeutic developments were transforming medical education, general practice, hospital practice, and the new national network of treatment clinics designed for the treatment of venereal diseases. By establishing a richer sense of diversity in past healthcare provisions (and the accessibility of these past provisions), this paper aims to identify more sophisticated ways of interpreting good health practices, along with a wider range of options in current debate over the direction of healthcare in the UK. (Show less)

Liat Kozma : Debating Abolition and the Fight against Venereal Diseases in Egypt, 1935-1939s
Regulation of prostitution was imposed on Egypt but months after the 1882 British occupation. Egyptian prostitutes were registered and had to submit to weekly examination; while European prostitutes were protected by their respective consulates and thus exempt from Egyptian law. Beginning from the 1920s, regulation became increasingly controversial: Egyptian feminists ... (Show more)
Regulation of prostitution was imposed on Egypt but months after the 1882 British occupation. Egyptian prostitutes were registered and had to submit to weekly examination; while European prostitutes were protected by their respective consulates and thus exempt from Egyptian law. Beginning from the 1920s, regulation became increasingly controversial: Egyptian feminists singled it out as national degradation, Islamic spokesmen emphasized the absurd of state-sponsored prostitution in an Islamic country, British abolitionists visited Egypt and offered solicited and unsolicited advice, and the League of Nations' interest in Egypt as a hub for international traffic in women similarly targeted state regulation. Among the Egyptian medical community, however, regulation was more controversial. While Egyptian doctors acknowledged that regulation was ineffective in containing venereal disease, they debated whether the system should be abolished or simply improved.
Against this background, and still under British occupation, two committees were convened, in 1935 and then in 1939 to consider the abolition of regulated prostitution, and chart alternatives. Both committees recommended gradual abolition, and both plans never materialized – as regulated prostitution was abolished in Egypt only after World War II. The proposed lecture will analyze the conclusion of both committees, and examine how those were attempts to assert Egyptian independence against lingering British occupation. The debates and conclusions of both committees, moreover, reveal underlying assumptions about prostitutes and their background; Egyptian masculinity and the sexuality of unmarried men, and the nature of Egypt's modernity (Show less)

Magaly Rodríguez García : The League of Nations’ Study of Venereal Diseases and Rehabilitation
During the 1930s, after having concluded that there was a direct link between regulated or tolerated brothels and an international traffic in women, the League of Nations’ Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children embarked on a larger mission: to rehabilitate prostitutes and to prevent prostitution. For its rehabilitative ... (Show more)
During the 1930s, after having concluded that there was a direct link between regulated or tolerated brothels and an international traffic in women, the League of Nations’ Advisory Committee on Traffic in Women and Children embarked on a larger mission: to rehabilitate prostitutes and to prevent prostitution. For its rehabilitative project, the League thought necessary to gather information on the prostitution legislation of each country and the profiles of women involved in the sex trade, as well as on the extent to which social services were provided in connection with the treatment of venereal diseases. The members of the League’s anti-traffic committee were of the opinion that rehabilitation of prostitutes would not be successful unless provisions were made for both efficient health systems and adequate social measures such involvement of trained assistants, residential accommodation during treatment, psychological therapy, training for employment and after care. This differed from the traditional approach with its focus on medical treatment.
This paper aims at analysing the results obtained and the conclusions drawn by the League, with regards to the best methods of treating venereal diseases and of rehabilitation. I argue that the mixed approach proposed by the League was influenced by humanitarian concerns and by controversial ideas on the “mental condition” of prostitutes. The members of the anti-traffic committee opposed draconian health controls but supported at the same time strong disciplinary measures that would contribute to the integration of prostitutes in “normal” life. As such, the League’s initiative strengthened the ostracism of prostitutes and the idea of prostitution as a deviant activity. (Show less)



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