ABSTRACT
The huge crisis caused by World War One and the subsequent Great Depression transformed the political geography of Europe and international relations. Health problems directly linked to poverty and the impairment of living conditions were included among the most prominent challenges. This required a shift from traditional public health control of plagues and infectious diseases – based on quarantine and isolation – to social and preventive medicine founded on experimental medicine, health statistics, vaccination, preventive campaigns, nutritional policies, and bacteriological research. The concept of social medicine appeared when society started to be considered as a living body suffering from diseases, both infectious and degenerative. Empowered by state authorities, social medicine tried to assess and improve the health of the community by institutionalising political and administrative apparatus to cope with social diseases such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and venereal diseases, but also mother and child health, alcoholism, mental disorders, hunger, and nutritional deficiencies.
The framing of expertise associated with state and international organisations operated to legitimise international intervention by influencing state policies, and conversely it was the national authorities who often requested expert advice, as well as technical and financial support, to challenge humanitarian tragedies involving epidemics, infections, and famine.
This chapter shows the creation of the first International Epidemic Commission under the initiative of the League of Nations, national and international systems of epidemiological recording, as well as programmes for the instruction of the public health experts who had a strong influence on technical and political decisions.
