Health Care in the Industrial Age. The Birth of Relief, Health and Pension Funds in the Factory Town of Augsburg (Gesundheitsfürsorge im 19. Jahrhundert. Geburtsstunde der Unterstützungs-, Kranken-und Pensionskassen im frühindustrialisierten Augsburg)
Author : Wolfgang Wüst
Abstract :
In the formative phase of the modern health care system, factory health insurance funds and workers' support associations with corresponding archival records played a decisive role parallel to advancing industrialization, which was recognized by urban, social and medical research but by no means comprehensively documented. For the early industrialized German town of Augsburg, corresponding initiatives to secure the “subsistence of old, unfit factory workers” date back to an expert opinion of the merchant class from 1819, long before corresponding state, customs association and national regulations. While the experience of the declining calico printing industry was still decisive at the beginning of the 19th century, the social challenges of early industrialization in the textile, printing and metal sectors were at the forefront of the subsequent founding of health insurances for factory workers.
Keywords :
Augsburg, Germany, health insurance, medicine, diseases, welfare, industrialization, factories, factory workers
