CALL FOR PAPERS

Date of the conference: June 2nd-4th 2005 (arrival: June, 1st, evening; departure June, 5th)

Place: Vienna, Municipal and Provincial Archives

Organizers:

• PhoenixTN
• Vienna Municipal and Provincial Archives (Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv)
  
• University of Vienna (Universität Wien)

Persons in charge for PhoenixTN: Prof. Dr. M. Dinges, Stuttgart/Mannheim

Person in charge for Vienna Municipal and Provincial Archives: Dr. S. C. Pils, Wien

Scientific committee: Prof. Dr. Martin Dinges, Dr. S.C. Pils, Prof. Dr. L. Abreu, N.N.

Email for all matters, except for sending in the abstracts: vienna2005.secretariat@phoenixtn.net

Conference language: English
Deadline for abstracts: [February 13th 2005] postponed until February 20th 2005
Email for abstracts: vienna2005@phoenixtn.net
Definitive invitation of speakers: March 15th 2005
Deadline for submission of papers: May 15th 2005
Web-Publication of all papers: May 20th 2005

RATIONALE

The aim of this conference is to reflect upon the specific role of cities in matters of health as compared to the countryside: Cities are an interesting research topic for two reasons: They create new health problems, but they also provide new solutions for these problems.

To start with the problems: A huge concentration of population lead to problems of hygiene; epidemics spread easier and faster in cities and even more in large cities. Cities tend to embody all kind of dangers to individual and public health: infected water or air, huge piles of garbage, poor sewage, bad housing conditions, dangerous traffic are some of the items already discussed by authors and politicians of earlier centuries. Accentuating older debates, the 18th centuries insisted very much on the specific dangers cities may cause for the moral health of their habitants. Links between ethics and health were considered to be very close: To give an example, idleness was supposed to lead to excessive alcohol consumption which might be the cause of all sorts of violence and physical ailments. During the nineteenth century new industrial forms of pollution add to this bad image of the city. Cities until the second half of the 19th century could never keep their population number without immigration. More people died inside the city than were born inside the walls. Historical demographers coined it the «urban penalty». In the 20th century the metropolises of wealthier nations could solve these problems, but outside the «welfare belt» these problems are still very acute.

From this point of view it is not astonishing that since the Middle Ages the city has been the principal provider of health care provisions. Cities as seats of secular and religious power attracted healers and profited early from pious foundations. People migrated from the country side to the city partially for getting services not available outside urban areas. In periods of historical change, cities are the «laboratories» for new forms of health care and health provision. This can be observed from the late Middle Ages onwards, especially for the core periods of change, such as the fourteenth century (plague), the fifteenth/sixteenth (reform of poor relief and hospitals) and the nineteenth centuries («sanitary revolution», larger health insurance schemes). The results of social experimentation in a time of change are often essential for state legislation in the field of hygiene, assistance and public health later on.

Nevertheless there were always tendencies to move out of the city for health reasons: already in the Middle Ages country houses were built by wealthier families. One of the reasons for this, more openly discussed since the 16th century, was the concept of «better air» in the countryside. The Hippocratic theory about the dangerous role of infected air was the background for these decisions. During the 19th century sanatoriums for patients suffering from tuberculosis were built in the countryside for the same reasons: the importance to get fresh air. Around 1900 school children were sent to the country side during summer to compensate bad health conditions during the rest of the year inside the city. Another point is the use of certain spaces inside the city which is also linked to issues of health: The wealthier quarters of London or Paris, for example, are situated to the west of these cities - and let the air pollution with the dominating winds coming from the west to the poorer east side.

In matters of health, city and countryside had changing roles and functions: To some extent they were complementary, in other occasions they acted as competitors. In any case the interrelatedness of both city and countryside are an important issue throughout the ages.

This conference aims at addressing these issues on various levels. The following examples serve only to indicate major issues.

Different levels of medicalization of the city and the countryside.

Health care provision inside the city as compared to the neighbouring areas, paying attention to the presence of all sorts of providers such as barber-surgeons, physicians, lay healers and hospitals and similar institutions.

The main focus will certainly be on institutions, as they are important providers of health-care and because sources on all types of hospitals are rather easily accessible. Papers should therefore address in particular the role played by inmates of these «total» institutions, no matter whether they are located in the countryside or in the city. Which role played migration for the creation and institutional continuity of such hospitals? Does the relation between city and countryside change at a particular time, when a better institutional provision of health care in rural areas is organized? When does this development start in specific European countries, regions and/or specific environments such as larger islands? What were the effects of secularisation on health care provision, which earlier had been provided by monasteries? Did the end of the monasteries have a more important impact on the country-side than on the city? Were these effects very different from one European country to another?

Founding health care institutions in the city or in the country side: What are the arguments of founders and which are the economic considerations in such decisions? Which is the explicit or implicit role ascribed to cities in this historical process of «moving out»? Psychiatric hospitals, special institutions for blind people, hospitals for «cripples» or other handicapped persons, special institutions for water cures could be considered as cases. The more recent trend to create resorts for «wellness» is another example. Building new hospitals inside cities f. e. during the 19th and 20th century is the other side of the same movement: Which are the elements of «nature» or «rural environment» to be integrated into new hospital architecture? Which role did the notion of city or countryside play in this discourse?

Mutual aid associations for cases of illness and/or death inside the cities have traditionally been mainly considered as an institution to supplement the family income, an especially acute problem for recent immigrants. Does the possibility to become a member of such a network make a move to the city an attractive option? Do these associations provide opportunities for immigrants which go far beyond health matters? Is there a distinctive feature between those members who belong to the indigenous population and those who were former immigrants from the countryside? Another aspect of this topic is to discuss, whether city and countryside play a role in the early years of health-care schemes introduced by various national states: Does the urban/rural gap vanish completely as a result of such health care and social security schemes?

Cities as multiplicators of ideas about hygiene: the rediscovery of the classical discourse on dietetics during the Renaissance, but also health-propaganda in the age of Enlightenment as well as the public propaganda of the hygienists in the 19th century, they all started in cities. But many of these health campaigns were - at least partially - focused on the rural population or were imbued with images of healthy or unhealthy life in the city or in the countryside.

Cities are the battle fields of discussions about Public health measures. One special aspect of these debates are assumptions about better and less good places to implement certain measures. Arguments for and against the implementation of new factories are one example, the construction of a sewage system another, the construction of a canal for used water supply another. The question is, for example, whether inhabitants of the wealthier quarters accepted such measures - and what were their arguments pro or contra?

A final issue is the changing role of cities in the innovation of health politics during the 20th century. Does the «nation state» and the later «welfare state» put an end to the special role of cities as compared to the countryside? Do cities loose their «advantage» as laboratories for new forms of health care provision? Or do cities find new terrains of innovative action, such as local health politics for specific vulnerable groups such as people with AIDS or long-distance immigrants. The definition of new topics of public health - as gender specific health experiences - was and may continue to be a field of specific urban action.

HOW TO PROCEED?

Please send an English-language abstract for a paper (one page-length) until [February 13th] February 20th 2005 to the following email address vienna2005@phoenixtn.net.

The abstract must contain name, title, position and institution of the author, email-address, and ordinary mail-address.

You will be informed before mid March whether your proposal has been accepted or not. The guidelines for the preparation and submission of papers will be sent together with the message of acceptance.

Papers will be precirculated and prepublished on the website of PhoenixTN, http\\phoenixtn.net, two weeks before the conference. This enables every participant to read the papers and to get a precise idea of the other contributions to the conference. During the conference the paper will only be summarized (seven minutes), followed by a comment and a discussion.

Participation is only guaranteed if the deadline for submission of papers is kept: May 15th 2005.

For papergivers who are members of PhoenixTN travel expenses, lodging and board during the conference will be paid for.

We encourage especially members of the Austrian Society for the History of Cities (Österreichischer Arbeitskreis für Stadtgeschichtsforschung) to give a paper, although in this case we cannot reimburse travel expenses.