Medicalization
*PATHOLOGY: Sometimes what is defined as unusual is seen as a medical problem
(i.e. an illness) other times it is defined as falling within the realm of
religion or law (i.e. as sin or deviant).
A Brief History of Western Medical Practice:
* In the beginning, illness was defined in religious terms as a spiritual
problem (e.g. Egypt, Mesopotamia, early Greece)
* Hippocrates moved to secularize disease & base medicine on empirical
observation. Introduced idea of balance.
* Galen: functional view of organs: influential anatomical works
* Medieval period: medical science declined: religious thought again
dominant
* Great plagues: ideas raised about quarantine, germ theory & case
histories
* 18th century: re-emergence of scientific medicine: age of medical
discoveries/ organization of medical knowledge vs. competing cures
* Secularization of the body, separation of church & state, + growth in
individual rights enabled clearer distinctions between disease, deviance,
crime, & sin
* Various experiments/discoveries/ advances in surgery, accompanied by various practices seen as harmful today.
Effects of Medicalization on mankind
* Upside: labelling something an illness more humanitarian than
blaming
* Downsides:
- Removing responsibility from individuals in favor of "disorder"
-Veiling political nature of negative judgement under guise of
scientific fact
- The problem of "expert control"
- The individualization of social problems
- The depoliticization of victims= behavior
- The potential for medical social control
- The implicit "exclusion of evil"
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