Jules Guérin and social medicine in 1848

Abstract

The significance of Social Medicine in France in 1848 as a movement led by doctor Jules Guérin is not adequately documented. Why would an orthopedist write the call to doctors in Paris proposing a union around Social Medicine? What is the meaning of the formulation on Social Medicine made by Jules Guérin in 1848? An analysis of Jules Guérin's trajectory supported by primary and bibliographic sources was made to answer these questions. The material analyzed allows us to conclude that there was no movement around Social Medicine, unlike hygiene, and closer to the revolutionary proposals of 1848. Jules Guérin was a liberal doctor who aimed to have a place in the new revolutionary government for the medical corporation. His scientific and professional work was fundamentally related to orthopedics, and the paper on Social Medicine was a circumstantial essay with liberal content.