Physicians and Society in Europe (18th – 20th centuries)

Primum non nocere

Physicians and Society in Europe

(18^th – 20^th centuries)

An interdisciplinary approach

 8 – 9 September 2022, Pardubice

Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Philosophy

University of Pardubice

The international conference Primum non nocere. Physicians and Society in Europe (18^th to 20^th centuries): an interdisciplinary approach was organized in cooperation with the Autonomous University of Madrid (Universidad Autonóma de Madrid). On September 8–9, 2022 scholars working in different fields explored and discussed the theme of physicians and society in a historical perspective.

The relationship between medicine, medical professionals and the society is multilayered issue that has changed throughout history and which was significantly affected by different cultural settings. This issue involve, for instance, the self-representation of physicians as well as their public image, the relationship between the state and the physicians, but also between the latter and the patients, or the use of medical arguments in public debate, in politics and in constructing individual and collective identities. The aim of the conference Primum non nocere is creating a space of interdisciplinary debate about the transformations of the place medicine and physicians have occupied in European societies during the last three centuries.

Thus, case studies from specific countries, time periods and political contexts can be enriched by comparison and transnational trends can also be identified. Such interaction creates a fruitful ground to assess the ongoing relevance of classical concepts coined by key theoreticians of history and sociology of medicine (Foucault, Parsons, Illich, Porter, Frevert, etc). Furthermore, it may lead to articulating new conceptual and methodological approaches that can help refine our understanding of the relationship between medicine, medical professionals and the society.

 Topics included:

• Physicians and patients
• Physician: authority and expertise (in public institutions, in public opinion, in the medical field)
• Medicine and politics (epidemics and ideology, governmentality, population management, social reform, medical metaphors of power)
• Physicians’ image and self-representation (press, caricatures, literature, painting, professional discourse)
• Medicine and gender
• Medical arguments in the society (hygienist movement, construction of modern subject, medicine and morals, interaction of medical discourse with religious discourses)