Een traject van onderhandeling. Hygiënisme als wetenschap, Antwerpen 1880-1900

Abstract

A Path of Negotiation: Hygienism as Science, Antwerp 1880-1900
This article aims to revise the image of the nineteenth-century hygienist physician as a social reformer and lobbyist by concentrating on the development of hygienism as a scientific discipline. To this end, it examines the participation of hygienist physicians in various medical commissions and scientific societies in late nineteenth-century Antwerp. This participation shows the negotiations between hygienist physicians and their medical colleagues on the appropriate forum for their studies and the validity of their methods. In these negotiations the label of an
‘applied science’ proved an important tool in overcoming internal differences and providing a balance between a medical audience and an audience of politicians. Such balancing was necessary as the investments in public health by the Antwerp local government also provided the infrastructure for hygienist research. The development of hygienism as a scientific discipline therefore forms a case in which the boundaries of what constituted science were expanded.