Tuberculosis and Political Economy: Industrial Wealth and National Health in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, c. 1900-1940

摘要

This article provides an historical assessment of the Luxembourgish anti-tuberculosis movement during the early decades of the twentieth century. It presents and discusses the widespread reflection on the economic burden of the disease deployed by the country's leading medical and social actors, as well as the particularly important role played by local industrialists and associated circles in the fight against consumption and the main strategies and events of the ambitious health education campaigns launched in the interwar period. It is suggested that all these initiatives have to be understood against the background of different economic, social and even national requirements, that is, as a way of preserving and improving the labour force, solving the social conflicts associated with the changing conditions of the modern industrial world, and providing evidence of the small nation's ability to face a major threat to its own legitimate existence among the civilised and progressive peoples of Europe.