Social Medicine in the Interwar years. The case of Jaques Parisot (1882-1967)

Abstract

Hygiene, asserted the “Pasteurians”, is “the very base of politics”. Professor of preventive medicine at Nancy medical school, the phtisiologist Jacques Parisot well epitomized the style of a discipline that had soon shown interest for the avenues of action. Just as many other practical minds in Europe and elsewhere, he lamented the discrepancies between medical innovation and organizational change. However, as a French Professor medicine he had more latitude than his foreign colleagues to try bringing together the laboratory, medical education and the clinics. Chair of the Health Committee of the League of Nations from 1937 to the war, Parisot is an interesting case of these “Statesmen in disguise”: to him social medicine, a science for action, was nothing but a vehicle to improve the Welfare of the community.