An Unusual Power: The Dangerous Roots of Psychiatry

So far this series of papers has been concerned with the rise in status of the medical profession in direct contrast to the effectiveness of its treatments. The conclusions reached are that physicians early became connected to central and local authorities. In France and Germany the state often paid for their services. Also doctors were connected with the courts, particularly where the use of human dissection was concerned. For example, the courts in Britain gave doctors the right to anatomise the corpses of criminals and vagrants, considered the lowest in society. In Western societies, doctors assumed policing duties due to the need to control epidemics, observed as first occurring amongst the urban poor, and to new concepts of people, evident from the 17th century, as both necessary for the wealth of nations and as individuals, not members of fixed groups. Their health thereby assumed greater importance. In effect, physician's status was largely determined by their aristocratic, controlling, paternalistic relationship to the poor and vulnerable.