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Social History of Medicine Advance Access originally published online on February 20, 2006
Social History of Medicine 2006 19(1):73-86; doi:10.1093/shm/hkj003
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved

‘The Liberty to Spread Disaster’: Campaigning for Compulsion in the Control of Venereal Diseases in Edinburgh in the 1920s

Susan Lemar*

* History and Politics, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace, Adelaide SA 5005, Australia. E-mail: susan.lemar{at}adelaide.edu.au

The historiography of the growth of government in modern industrial societies has taken shape around two propositions. The first is that governments tend inexorably to discipline social life through the elaboration of an apparatus of inspection and compulsion. The second is that controls of this kind involve elites in the subordination of relatively powerless social categories such as women and children, the poor, the sick, immigrants and minority ethnic groups. This article challenges this meta-narrative in relation to venereal disease. First, it demonstrates the persistence of voluntary and non-compulsory forms of control in interwar Edinburgh. Secondly, the article identifies the contested and negotiated character of regulatory measures. Finally, it seeks to show that compulsion was not an acceptable and popular approach to the problem of venereal disease in Britain at this time.

Keywords: venereal diseases; public health; social policy; compulsion; notification; sexual health


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