Guest editorial. The history of public health in Europe

Abstract

JC/uroi>pe, the old continent, is full of memories from the history of public health, and public health is full of memories from the history of Europe. George Rosen's A history of public health, still the only comprehensive synthesis of the development of public health, clearly illustrates the latter connection. Chapters like 'Health and the community in the Greco-Roman world', 'Public health in the Middle Ages', 'Healdi in a period of enlightenment and revolution', and 'Industrialism and the sanitary movement' almost read like a series of footnotes to Europe's economic and cultural history. Conversely, travellers to historical places in Europe will have no difficulty in identifying remnants of public health as it was in die past think of Roman aqueducts and baths, medieval hospitals, pictures and monuments testifying to the terror of the Black Death, working and housing conditions before the twentiedi century, et cetera.