Medical confidentiality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: An Anglo-German comparison

Maehle, Andreas Holger; Pranghofer, Sebastian

Medical confidentiality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: An Anglo-German comparison

Publication date

2010

Document type

Research article

Author

Maehle, Andreas Holger

Pranghofer, Sebastian

Organisational unit

Geschichte der frühen Neuzeit u.b.B. der Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte

URI

https://openhsu.ub.hsu-hh.de/handle/10.24405/11536

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-78649243680

Pubmed ID

21077462

ISSN

0025-8431

Series or journal

Medizinhistorisches Journal

Periodical volume

45

Periodical issue

2

First page

189

Last page

221

Part of the university bibliography

Nein

Abstract

Professional secrecy of doctors became an issue of considerable medico-legal and political debate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in both Germany and England, although the legal preconditions for this debate were quite different in the two countries. While in Germany medical confidentiality was a legal obligation and granted in court, no such statutory recognition of doctors' professional secrecy existed in England. This paper is a comparative analysis of medical secrecy in three key areas divorce trials, venereal disease and abortion - in both countries. Based on sources from the period between c.1870 and 1939, our paper shows how doctors tried to define the scope of professional secrecy as an integral part of their professional honour in relation to important matters of public health. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart.

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Medical confidentiality in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: An Anglo-German comparison