[ Vortrag | Lecture ]

In Lesesaal des Josephinum (Währinger Straße 25, A-1090 Wien) on Mai 7, 2009 at 18 p.m. c.t., Dr. Daniela Sechel (Dept. of History, CEU, Budapest - Postdoctoral Fellow, Inst. f. Geschichte, Univ. Wien) will held a lecture entitled Medical Police: the Viennese Discourse and its reception in Hungary and Transylvania (1770-1830).

The German natural law theorists (Leibniz, Pufendorf and Wolff) put forward ideas about the cultivation of medical science and the control of medical practitioners with the help of Health Boards. Their paternalistic discourse of welfare and happiness influenced German thinkers and scholars who taught cameral sciences (Kameralwissenschaft) in German Universities. The cameralist ideas were also professed by royal councillors and administrators. In Vienna, Enlightened authors such as J. G. Justi, J. von Sonnenfels, and physicians such as G. van Swieten and J. P. Frank argued that health problems could be solved by a wise policy implemented by the ruler and by the imposition of good laws.

The talk will shed new light on the construction of 'medizinische Polizeiwissenschaft', the concept of 'state medicine' and the relation of the medical police discourses to medical theories in the context of the Habsburg Monarchy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Daniela Sechel argues that the medical police practices, in the last part of the eighteenth century, were shaped by the interplay between medical theories, more specifically contagion theories, and political and economic interest of the Habsburg emperors.

Biographical notes: At the present time Daniela Sechel is postdoctoral fellow at the Department of History, University of Vienna. In 2008 she finished her PhD (Cum Laudae) on 'Health Care Policy and Social Discipline Promoted by the Habsburgs in Transylvania between 1740 -1830.' at the History Department, 'Babes-Bolyai' University (BBU), Faculty of History and Philosophy , Cluj-Napoca, Romania.. From 09/2007 to 02/ 2008 she was research associate at the Wellcome Trust for History of Medicine at University College London. In 2006 she worked as teaching assistant at the History Department, CEU, Budapest, Hungary. In 2003 she finished her MA (with Distinction) with a thesis on 'Healthy Subjects and Common Good. Health Care Policy Promoted by the Habsburgs in Transylvania Between 1740-1830' at the CEU. From 1992 to1997 she did her BA in History at the Medieval History Department, Faculty of History and Philosophy, BBU, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. From1990 to1993 Daniela Sechel was a registered nurse at "Victor Babes" Nursing College, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Contact: sammlungen@meduniwien.ac.at, +43/ 1/ 40160/ 26000.