Grant: History of Medicine

Chronic disease has been an important category for understanding illness since ancient times. But in the 20th century it has assumed a central role in policy discussions and proposals for reform, particularly in North America. Surprisingly, no one has thoroughly analyzed how and why the idea of chronic disease has assumed such critical importance to our current understanding of modern medicine. While historians have discussed the history of many individual chronic diseases, the meta-concept "chronic disease" has remained a black box, something taken for granted rather than critically examined. The purpose of this project is to fill this gap by exploring the 20th-century history of this concept in comparative perspective. The central hypothesis is that meanings and associations of "chronic disease" have changed repeatedly since the 19th century and have evolved differently in the three countries under consideration, the United States, Great Britain and France. And central to its development has been the relationship and boundaries between the social welfare and medical arenas