1603 2003: 400 years of public health in Norway

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1603 2003400 years of public health in Norway

• Magne Nylenna

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In 1603 Villads Nielsen (Vilhadius Adamius) ca.
1564 1616 was appointed ordinario medico in
Bergen by King Christian IV of Denmark-Norway
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400 years celebrations
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From plague to parking problems
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Norway and public health services
2003
1603
4,5 mill. inhabitants
400 000 inhabitants
Poverty
Prosperity
Extensive health services
No health services
Illness and death was a natural part of everyday
life
Good health in old age is regarded as a human
right
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17th century

• The early modern state
• The plague
• Isolation
• Monastery hospitals
• Treatment Enema and blood-letting

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18th century

• The Enlightenment
• Awareness of people as individuals
• Leprosy hospitals
• Smallpox epidemics
• Inoculation and later vaccination

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19th century

• Nation building
• Aiming at a healthy population
• Hospitals turned into institutions for treatment
• Cholera
• Bacteriological breakthrough

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20th century

• The welfare state
• Tuberculosis, Spanish flu, Poliomyelitis
• New infections HIV/AIDS, SARS
• Medical progress
• Health care services as a growth industry

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Medical literature

• 1643 First printing machine in Norway
• 1665 First scientific journals (Paris/London)
• 1778 Sundhetstidende (Copenhagen)
• 1826 Eyr (Christiania)
• 1840 Norsk Magazin for Lægevidenskaben
• 1881 Tidsskrift for praktisk Medicin
• increasing number of periodicals

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The growth of information
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About medical journals .their importance in
medical science, in which the literature is so
voluminous that a doctor devoting his whole time
to it, would not possibly be able to readeven a
tenth of it
Report in Eyr, 1827 when the library of the
University of Christiania subscribed to 18
medical journals
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What about libraries?
Leyden, 1610
NLM, Bethesda, 2003
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Libraries in Norway

• 1662 Dr. Ambrosius Rhodius (1605-1696) had 437
  books
• 1781 Gerhard Schøning (1722-1780) donated 12 000
  books to The Royal Society of Sciences in
  Trondheim
• 1785 Deichman library in Christiania
• 1811 University library in Christiania
• 1968 Library of the Medical Faculty, University
  of Oslo

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400 years of development

• research
• knowledge
• understanding
• information

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Updated, reliable and comprehensive information
never goes out of fashion