[The health catechism--a specific concept of medical public health education]

Medical matters were popularized in the eighteenth century on three main levels: the Moral Weeklies were directed at the educated public; there were various publications designed to instruct the masses; and the rural population and the young were reached by means of the catechisms of health. The latter (the subject of the present study) were works of a simplified and self-instructive character aimed at a lay readership, and developed out of such popularizing compendia as Tissot's Avis au peuple sur la santé (1761). Whereas the earlier catechistical approaches to popular knowledge retained some of the religious intention of their generic forebears, the catechisms of health tended to take a secular approach to matters of personal health. The catechisms expected their readers to be responsible for the maintenance and restoration of their own state of health. Instruction was given in the sex res non naturales of the regimen sanitatis. Instead of self-medication, the patient was exhorted to consult a trained physician or surgeon; the advice given was thus of a general nature relating mainly to hygiene and nursing. In opposing such antiquated practices as bleeding, purging, faith-healing and uroscopy, the catechisms were also an appropriate medium for promoting recent medical achievements (such as inoculation against small-pox and, later on, vaccination) which were customarily regarded with suspicion by the common people. The fact that the catechisms of health were written by physicians on the one hand and pedagogues on the other generated criticism. Whereas the publications written by physicians normally reflected the "state of the art", this could not always be said for the compilations of the pedagogues, who were often attacked for incompetence by their colleagues, thus giving rise to new prejudices. The catechisms of health can be seen as a realistic and inexpensive approach to enlightening the populace in medical affairs. The familiar question-and-answer format eased distribution in schools. Questionable attitudes underlying traditional approaches to popular medicine were openly addressed in a realistic manner. Although the catechisms of health (especially that of Bernhard Christoph Faust) were widespread--as is shown by the many editions and translations--it is very difficult to judge their effectiveness. They certainly did not, for example, fulfil their chief goal, which was to introduce health educaiton into the schools, as their organization and structure in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were not sufficiently receptive to such a progressive concept.