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Social Conflict and Consensus on Hygienic Polices in Paris at the Late 19th Century

  • Korean Review of French History
  • Abbr : KRFH
  • 2006, (14), pp.97~134
  • Publisher : KOREAN SOCIETY FOR FRENCH HISTORY
  • Research Area : Humanities > History

Min, You-ki 1

1광운대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes French laws regarding the public health and the policies of Paris on urban hygiene in the late 19th century. Moreover, it examines how problems with the urban hygiene created social conflict and what brought social consensus about the importance of public sanitation during this time. The first public intervention on the sanitary conditions of the houses, which was the main concern of the urban hygiene, was the law of 1850 regarding the control of unsanitary houses. But this law was very restricted; the public health law of 1902 overcame this limit. The city of Paris stipulated the system of garbage disposal in 1883 and the regulation of the inns in 1884. The law of 1894 on the cleaning of the Seine made it mandatory to install direct sewer pipes. The hygienic problems created social conflict throughout the late 19th century. On one side of the conflict were hygienists and social reformists that considered hygienic polices as a part of social reform. On the other side were liberalists and building owners who criticized the hygienic policies as an unnecessary intervention of the state on private properties. However, the public health law of 1902 demonstrates that social consensus was obtained on the importance of hygienic problems, in spite of social conflict to sanitary policy. The reason why the consensus was possible is that activities and the authority of the hygienists had been acknowledged since the reform in microbiology led by Louis Pasteur. With hygienist activities, social conscience on the importance of the urban hygienic policies was raised step by step.

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