The Officiers de Santé of the French Revolution: A Case Study in the Changing Language of Medicine

The revolutionary period in France was a time of great turmoil. It affected all aspects of society including medicine. 1 One feature which has received some attention is the con-comitant change in language. 2 The adoption of the general term officier de sante (literally``health officer'') to denote all those practising medicine at the time provides a particularly interesting example, which has never been properly studied. The distinguished French historian of medicine, Jean-Charles Sournia, has said that the term deserves special attention, but he devotes no more than half a page to it. 3 Language is always important in shaping the social construction of reality and the Revolution illustrates this thesis particularly well. There were many attempts to create a new and better world simply by changing the vocabulary. One way of dissociating the new order from the ancien reÂgime was to make certain words and names taboo. Most famously, the respectful bourgeois titles of Monsieur/Madame were replaced by the universal citoyen/ citoyenne. We shall see that the democratization of language extended to several aspects of The author would like to express his sincere thanks to several referees for their many constructive comments.