Hygienists, workers' bodies and machines in nineteenth-century France

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12529313
AutoresThomas Le Roux (0000-0002-6969-9943, Centre de Recherches Historiques, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen20
Número2
Páginas255-270
Fecha de publicación2013-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEuropean Review of History Revue européenne d histoire (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1350-7486 • E-ISSN: 1469-8293
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13507486.2013.766523
OpenAlexW1980703452
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas27

The new machines introduced by industrialisation subjected workers' bodies to a new pace of work, new tasks and hitherto unknown risks. While the hygienist community in France contributed enormously to the emergence of public health in Europe, it focused only belatedly on the dangers of machines for the physical integrity of workers. This article seeks to explain why there was so little interest in this issue during the first phase of French industrialisation (1800–70). Industrial work was perceived by public-health advocates as a step forward compared to former crafts, often carried out in unhealthy workshops. For them, machines helped rationalise production tasks, ventilate workspaces, relieve workers' suffering and replace men for the most laborious and dangerous tasks. Because of these many advantages, they forgot about the drawbacks of industrial mechanisation. As the decades went by, accidents due to machines maimed and killed more and more workers. Despite the warnings issued by some doctors, it was not until the 1860s that hygienists started to question the benefits of machines. However, engineers rather than doctors took over the responsibility of safety at work, followed by lawmakers who dealt with this issue at the end of the nineteenth century

Business · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Industrialisation · Occupational safety and health · Pace · Political science · Public relations · Work (physics · Engineering · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Mechanical Engineering