Weisz G
Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University, 3655 Drummond Street, Montreal, Quebec H3G-1Y6, Canada.
Isis. 2001 Sep;92(3):451-83. doi: 10.1086/385278.
This essay examines the survival of waters therapy in twentieth-century France with a view to understanding the conditions that make a therapy convincing in one national context and not in another. Part of the explanation for this survival has to do with the size and power of the spa industry. Where this industry was strong and economically powerful--as it was in France--its survival became a national priority. Of equal importance, however, was the role of the medical elite. In twentieth-century France, a small but influential group of elite physicians served as the chief architects of the continued survival and development of water cures. The primary mechanism for this process was a massive and successful campaign to introduce hydrology into the curriculum of medical schools. Once this was achieved, a large corps of academic hydrologists were in a position to produce significant amounts of convincing hydrological science that seemed to demonstrate the varied physiological effects of mineral waters. By the 1940s mineral waters had enough scientific visibility to ensure their inclusion without controversy in the national health insurance system that was being set up.
本文探讨了水疗法在20世纪法国的存续情况，旨在理解使一种疗法在一个国家背景下具有说服力而在另一个国家背景下却不然的条件。这种存续的部分原因与温泉疗养行业的规模和影响力有关。在该行业强大且经济实力雄厚的地方——就像在法国那样——其存续就成为了国家优先事项。然而，同样重要的是医学精英的作用。在20世纪的法国，一小群有影响力的精英医生是水疗法持续存续和发展的主要推动者。这一过程的主要机制是一场大规模且成功的运动，将水文学引入医学院课程。一旦做到这一点，一大批学术水文学家就能够产出大量有说服力的水文科学成果，似乎证明了矿泉水具有多种生理效应。到20世纪40年代，矿泉水已具备足够的科学知名度，得以毫无争议地被纳入正在建立的国家医疗保险体系。
