[The development of German social medicine in the nineteenth century]

In his influential treatise System einer vollständigen medizinischen Polizey, Johann Peter Frank (1745-1821) made significant contributions to the establishment of the concept of medical police, which has been understood as the forerunner of social medicine. Cameralism, the German version of mercantilism, became the very basis on which Frank and other German writers developed the framework of medical police. 'Medical reform' was the catchword of German medical men in the 1840s. The medical reform movement of 1848 was partially caused by a deep political, economic, and social crisis. Although Industrial Revolution began in Germany later than in England and France during the first half of the nineteenth century, by 1848 the formation of German industrial working-class made medical reformers recognize the causal relationships between social and health problems. The outstanding figures in the German medical reform movement of this period were Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902), Solomon Neumann and Rudolf Leubuscher. In his famous Report on the Typhus Epidemic in Upper Silesia, Virchow proposed several radical measures that could be used against the epidemic: the absolute separation of the schools from the church, the establishment of self-government in the state and community, unlimited democracy, road building, and the improvement of agriculture and horticulture. ...