French hygienists believed only a centralized state could enforce public health

Evidence

The hygienists also assumed that the central government was the only agent powerful enough to en- force these measures, and so they agitated for a unified and central- ized public health authority. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 214

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Frames what ‘hygienism’ meant as a political program — central-state enforcement of uniform health standards.

Related

• French hygienists sought to reform domestic public health through centralized state authority (similarity 0.88)
• Local French doctors and property owners, not hygienists, won the hygiene campaign (similarity 0.81)
• Local doctors and property owners, not hygienists, shaped French health policy (similarity 0.81)
• French Senate’s localism gutted national public health enforcement (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Colonial administrators enacted public health laws with more force than French ones #complicates (0.60)