Medicalizing Topography: The French Army and Mediterranean Climates, 1760–1860

Abstract

This article details how the French army employed medical topography as a tool of military occupation throughout the Mediterranean world from the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth century. It departs from other works by focusing exclusively on medical topography's military applications. Medical topographies charted the connections between health and the environment by observing a location's features, such as soil, air, and water quality, as well as elevation, prevailing winds, common local diseases, sources of potential contagion, and the cleanliness of urban environments. Because a medical-topographic study took time to write and implement, its findings provided little utility during active conflict. Only after the fighting ceased during a campaign could the army make use of a medical topography's findings by taking measures such as draining swamps, relocating hospitals in unhealthy environments, and issuing climate-appropriate gear.