ABSTRACT
In his 1801 introduction to a book on Medicine, Surgery, Midwifery and Forensic Medicine [Arzneykunst, Wundarzneykunst, Geburtshülfe und Gerichtlichen Arzneykunde], Samuel Gottlieb Vogel seized the opportunity to identify and to promote in glowing terms the medical police and its policies, through which “poisonous, dying, unlivable, barren places” could be transformed into “healthy paradises”:
In a State [with an active medical police], there rules in every regard the spirit of order, of lawfulness, of morality, of tranquility and of peace. There blooms not only the rosy color of health and good cheer; there bloom also fertile fi elds, arts, and sciences. People more willingly and competently meet their obligations, and they love more righteously their Landesvater [lit. “father of the land,” i.e., the sovereign] who cares for them so benevolently.1
