On the track of an unobserved disease of ancient societies: ulcerations and cancers of the skin among textile workers in Flanders and Hainaut in the eighteenth century ; Sur les traces d’une maladie inobservée des anciennes sociétés : les ulcères et cancers cutanés des ouvrières textiles des Flandres et du Hainaut au XVIIIe siècle

International audience ; In 1772, a physician from Valenciennes described ulcerations and cancers of the skin among textile workers in Flanders and Hainaut who used coal heaters, a disease which was recognized by medicine two centuries later, at the very time it was disappearing from the western world. The microhistorical approach used in this paper allows us to follow the track of this paradigmatic disease, long misunderstood and unobserved by physicians. It also shed sharp light on the early industrialism which was growing in the North of France in the eighteenth century, and on its sanitary... Mehr ...