ABSTRACT
FOR a century or more the health of prisoners has been a fundamental concern of both penal theorists and penal administrators. Howard, and later Elizabeth Fry, believed that the control of infectious disease and the prevention of malnutrition should be a primary concern of prison authorities, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the prison doctor was an established feature of the scene. But unlike the chaplain and the schoolmaster, whose roles were quite early defined in positive terms, the doctor, like his counterpart outside, was concerned primarily with the control of epidemic diseases. The bathing and examination of newly received prisoners, together with the sampling of food and authorization for the fumigation or destruction of clothing, are activities which have been carried on at Pentonville for more than a century. This aspect of the doctor's role, as a 'purifier', is paralleled in some primitive societies by the role of the priest. The priest and the doctor possess special knowledge, large areas of which remain beyond the access and comprehension of the lay individual and, as a result, their skills become shrouded in a mystique which renders them invulnerable to criticism. The genesis of the doctor's power in the prison community is to be found here.
