The material culture of caring and curing

Abstract

In recent years, medical historians have broadened their analyses of hospitals by looking at the materiality of healthcare institutions and how it ties to the complex ideological, social and economic organisation of society. This ‘material turn’ brought new nuances to a history that had been up to then mostly dominated by the master narratives of teleological progress and social control. This chapter aims to shed light on the material environment of Belgian hospitals and asylums in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and on the ways that it not only reflected prevailing ideas about cure and care but also responded to evolving moral norms, economic constraints and the slow social levelling of Belgian society. From an ideology of comfortable domesticity to the demands of aseptic cleanliness, from old paternalist charitable ideals to new commercial aspirations, healthcare institutions kept reconfiguring their material forms to match an ever-changing set of scientific and lay expectations. Closely following international trends in hospital design and furnishing, Belgian healthcare institutions were also shaped by national realities such as the stranglehold of Catholic congregations on the healthcare sector. Lastly, by looking at the ways in which objects and material environments were built, used and adapted, this chapter gives us insights into the everyday practices – from dry scrubbing floors with coffee grounds and locking up prostitute patients in closed quarters, to colour-coding elements of the architectural environment – that made up hospital life in the past.