The geographical imperative in nineteenth-century French medicine.

Medical geography was an abiding but at times peripheral concern of the medical art in nineteenth-century France. This article reviews selected works of the major medical geographers and examines the conditions of their emergence. Only mildly concerned with the values of cartographic precision, the article lays a foundation for future investigations into the subliminal geography of the medical profession as regards issues of race, imperialism, and disciplinary politics.' The perception of links between climate or physical environment and human health, of course, has a long history.2 French medical geographers and expeditionary physicians of the nineteenth century frequently engaged the ideas of Hippocrates and other historical figures in their work.3 Although it contained no maps, the Hippocratic treatise On Airs, Waters, and Places stands as the foundational text of the environmental geography of disease. France, perhaps more than any other country of Europe, has long celebrated the works of Hippocrates, and in 1800 a French-trained physician