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Care, Cure or Control?

Care, Cure or Control?. A Total and a General Dietetics Dr. Rick Dolphijn Humanities; Utrecht University; the Netherlands rick.dolphijn@let.uu.nl. Voedingscentrum (the Netherlands Nutrition Centre). Men have to consume 2500 Kcal a day, women 2000.

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Care, Cure or Control?

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  1. Care, Cure or Control? A Total and a General Dietetics Dr. Rick Dolphijn Humanities; Utrecht University; the Netherlands rick.dolphijn@let.uu.nl

  2. Voedingscentrum (the Netherlands Nutrition Centre) • Men have to consume 2500 Kcal a day, women 2000. • Everyone should eat two pieces of fruit and two ounces of vegetables a day. • Children and elderly people should drink cow’s milk as the calcium makes their bones stronger. • Everyone should try to reduce the intake of saturated fat.

  3. Modern Medical theories rule Starts with Justus Liebig in the mid 19th century • Overcodes european naturalist traditions immediately • Spreads its power in the colonial world since late 19th century (f.i. Ayurvedic principles) • After WO II or 1989 also in entire postcolonial world (f.i. Chinese traditional Medicine)

  4. Historically (pre-modern and modern) Culturally (Western, Ayurverdic, CTM) Politically (a Total and a General Dietetics) Here we propose a reading of the political dietetics by rethinking both the historical and the cultural. How to study dietetic change?

  5. The Political: expanding Foucault & Rosen "Medical supervision... is inseparable from a whole series of other controls: the military control over the deserters, the fiscal control over commodities, administrative control over remedies, rations, disappearances, cures, deaths, simulations" (Foucault 1995: 144) “The protection and promotion of the health and welfare of its citizens is considered to be one of the most important functions of the modern state” (Rosen 1985: 17)

  6. The Political in History (1) Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) • Diaita as ponos and gymnasion. Hippocrates: finding the aisa through pantra metra, the harmonic balances between the human being and what surrounds him. Foucault: it was a complete art of living. • Even Socrates when quoted by Xenophon stresses the importance of observing and recording what benefits the body and he entrusts his listeners with the thought that it is thus that one can find the best way to stay healthy. Nutritional science Hippocrates (460?-377? BC) Galen (129-199) Plato (428?-347 BC) 2008 Naturalist treatments science

  7. The Political in History (2) Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) • Plato (in the Republic) claims that the reasonable man is in search for education along the paths of the muses and sees no benefit in devoting much of his time to his physical condition and training. • Plato (in the Laws) claims that there are two kinds of doctors; those for the free who convince and then prescribe, and those for the slaves who just order the patient what to do. Plato places dietetics under the rule of the mind an the patient under the rule of the doctor. Nutritional science Hippocrates (460?-377? BC) Galen (129-199) Plato (428?-347 BC) 2008 Naturalist treatments science

  8. The Political in History (3) Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) • Galen locates Hippocrates humoral imbalances in the body, moing from a dynamic dietetics to static anatomy • Galen continues Plato: the doctor knows the body, and thus is capable of controlling it. • The Greek diaita (‘lifestyle’, ‘way of life’ and ‘means of sustaining life’) is changed into the Latin concept of diateta (the rules of life as defined by the doctor) • Christianity, in its preference of the mind over the body, accepts this Roman opposition; it is the only world religion that has no dietetic regulations. (It only accepts abstinence of food: fasting) Nutritional science Hippocrates (460?-377? BC) Galen (129-199) Plato (428?-347 BC) 2008 Naturalist treatments science

  9. The Political in Culture (1)

  10. Health is a part of policy, as a means for control (institutionalization) The body and its illnesses are carefully mapped (it is ontological and localizing) Strict difference between medicine and food Theorematic traditions Health as an insight into life, as an aesthetics of life No strict systematics of definitions (it is dynamic and general) Differences in the effects produced (non-essentialist) Problematic traditions Conclusion: a Total and a General Dietetics

  11. …the eternal return of the general • Ayurvedic dietetics (in their focus on the substances, qualities, and actions that can be life-enhancing) kept stressing the need for an immanent semiology (called the TrividhPariksha) in which all senses and sense organs of the medic (except the mouth) should be opened up and serve to find the imbalances of the sick by all means. • Zhang Zhongjing (150-219 A.D.), known as the 'Saint of Medicine', of whom many fragments on the dangers of theoretical formalization have been kept. He stated for instance: "It seems to me that physicians nowadays fail to look into medical 'science' and improve their medical skills. Instead, following the same way as their ancestors in practice and adhering to the old therapies, these physicians examine patients and listen to their complaints, and all of them give basis for their treatment… " • Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), whose iatromechanical model of medicine follows Galen (and Descartes), yet by introducing Leibniz, tries to give it back its dynamism.

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