Epidemias, medicalización y evolución hospitalaria: Bases para una historia de las culturas de la salud y de la enfermedad

Abstract

This article has a double objective. On the one hand, it analyses the different stages of medicalization that took place in Europe since the late Middle Ages. On the other hand, it’s an approach to the changes experienced in the meaning and development of the hospitals in the past and the social role they have played. Both processes are examined from the longue durée, emphasizing the historical conditions that determined them. Among them, those related to the great epidemics such as the Black Death.