Education, Mutualism, and Medical Consumers in Third Republic France, 1882-1914

Abstract

SummaryWhen the republican government of France revised the curriculum of its newly expanded programme of public instruction in the 1880s, a significant emphasis was placed on teaching female students about basic family health care. Home economics manuals stressed the importance of entrusting the family's health to a physician, which in turn depended on spending a portion of the household budget on dues for a mutual aid society. At a time when the medical marketplace offered an increased array of options for treatment, and pervasive pharmaceutical advertising directly appealed to sick people as consumers, French republican politicians, social reformers and physicians viewed education as the means to persuade the public to rely on professional, scientific medicine. Given the role that women played in administering medical treatment in the home and in managing the household budget, persuading female students that mothers should entrust their family's health to a physician was essential to the expansion of the doctor's authority, which was an important component in the professionalisation of medicine.