Bodies of concern: Alternative medicine and the secret history of German modernity,1799--1921.
详细信息
文摘
In "Bodies of Concern: Alternative Medicine and the Secret History of German Modernity, 1799-1921," I analyze the way that bodies - real and metaphorical -- organized the German conversation about society and social reform in the long nineteenth century. My work traces the development of Naturheilkunde [natural healing or naturopathy] from a largely rural healing ideology rooted in personal practices, to a mostly urban movement concerned with the unintended consequences of industrialization. With roots in peasant craft and romantic-era philosophy, Naturheillunde had at its center the belief that sensible personal habits, when complemented by sunlight, water, massage, and dietary therapies, unlocked the key to a long and healthy life. But as Naturheilkunde became a mass movement in the final decades of the nineteenth century -- among the largest in Germany at the outbreak of World War One -- this preoccupation with individual bodies began to shift. Particularly after 1900, natural healers, their patients, and their professional advocates began to emphasize social and economic reform as an important condition for individual health. In an increasingly urban, increasingly stratified Germany, they argued that social facts --e.g. the quality of the housing stock, air and water, and working conditions -- were as important as individual choice in promoting healthy living. And once this connection was made, it began to shape a broader agenda: the natural healing movement joined a growing chorus of reformers calling for the more equitable, healthy, and sustainable organization of industry and urban space, labor and leisure. This was a conversation that transcended party political allegiances and confessional ones: Kaiser Wilhelm II and Karl Liebknecht both took part alongside millions of other Germans from across the social-political spectrum. On issues ranging from rational nutrition to urban planning, from personal hygiene to public health, the natural healing movement helped to transform the ways that Germans thought about health at the intersections of the individual body and the body social.