[Living in abundance in the ancient and modern worlds from a medical and cultural-historical point of view]. / Weiterleben im Uberfluss in der antiken und modernen Welt aus medizin- und kulturhistorischer Sicht.

Comparative investigations centre on attitudes of demand and consumption in ethnic groups living in affluence, beginning with the first pre-Christian century in the Roman Empire on the one hand and in Western countries in the post-industrial age of hight-tech in times of far advanced globalization on the other. In this context medical, psycho-social and socio-economical aspects will be treated considering ideal and cultural breaks. Renowned Roman and Greek historians, physicians and philosophers are vouching as witnesses of the times for developments in the antique world with their literary works, in excerpts and verbatim. Obviously general moral decay is a side effect of any affluence. Even in the antiquitiy the "ideology of renewal" proclaimed by the Emperor Augustus died away mostly in emptiness just as do the appeals for improving one's state of health for surviving directed to all citizens in our time. With the rise of Rome as a world power general relative affluence was widespread to such an extent that diseases caused by affluence have occured as mass phenomena. The old Roman virtues of temperance and frugality turned into greed and addiction to pleasure. In this way the Roman people under the banner of affluence degenerated into a society of leisure time, consumption, fun and throwaway mentality. The decline of the Empire was predetermined. The promise of affluence which modern Europe is addicted to is demanding its price following the principle of causality. "How the pictures resemble each other!"

Historical overview of church involvement in health and wellbeing in Australia: implications for health promotion partnerships.

Health promotion practice requires partnerships with different sectors of society and at all levels of government to achieve health equity as the prerequisites for health include domains that exist outside of the health sphere. Therefore existing partnerships for health need to be strengthened and the potential for new partnerships must be considered in order to address health holistically. The literature base exploring the church as a partner and setting for health promotion is predominantly from the US and therefore there is a need for research exploring the opportunities and challenges of partnering with churches in the Australian context. This paper presents an historical overview of the involvement of churches and church affiliated organisations in health and welfare in Australia recognising that while some of the values, practices and beliefs of churches may have considerable synergies with health promotion, others may be sources of contention or difference.

Images of welfare in law and society: the British welfare state in comparative perspective.

Designed by Beveridge and built by Attlee's post-war Labour government, the welfare state was created during the 1940s. Britain has been seen ­ in domestic debates and internationally ­ as a world first: the place where both the idea and the practice of the welfare state were invented. I draw together comparative welfare state analysis with law and society scholarship (previously largely developed in isolation from one another) ­ as well as using British political cartoons as a source ­ to develop a revisionist historical critique of this conventional wisdom. First, the British welfare state has always been comparatively parsimonious. Second, the idea of the welfare state seems to have its origins outside the United Kingdom and this terminology was adopted relatively late and with some ambivalence in public debate and scholarly analysis. Third, a large body of socio-legal scholarship shows that robust 'welfare rights' were never embedded in the British 'welfare state'.

What adult worker model? A critical look at recent social policy reform in Europe from a gender and family perspective.

Analyses regularly feature claims that European welfare states are in the process of creating an adult worker model. The theoretical and empirical basis of this argument is examined here by looking first at the conceptual foundations of the adult worker model formulation and then at the extent to which social policy reform in western Europe fits with the argument. It is suggested that the adult worker formulation is under-specified. A framework incorporating four dimensions­the treatment of individuals vis-à-vis their family role and status for the purposes of social rights, the treatment of care, the treatment of the family as a social institution, and the extent to which gender inequality is problematized­is developed and then applied. The empirical analysis reveals a strong move towards individualization as social policy promotes and valorizes individual agency and self-sufficiency and shifts some childcare from the family. Yet evidence is also found of continued (albeit changed) familism. Rather than an unequivocal move to an individualized worker model then, a dual earner, gender-specialized, family arrangement is being promoted. The latter is the middle way between the old dependencies and the new "independence." This makes for complexity and even ambiguity in policy, a manifestation of which is that reform within countries involves concurrent moves in several directions.

Faith-based social services: saving the body or the soul? A research note.

Faith-based organizations might be ideal social service providers, claiming to transform clients' lives with holistic support while meeting immediate needs. While organizations have such goals, their success is impacted by constituencies with differing goals for the organization. Clients with goals not commensurate with an organization's may compromise its ability to attain its goals. Three questions are examined here: What are the goals of faith-based service providers? When asked what they think about the services, do clients share the organizational goals? Are organizations likely to meet either set of goals? Homeless persons patronizing faith-based soup kitchens were interviewed; service activities of organizations were observed. Clients' goals focused on survival in their current situation. Organizations' goals ranged from meeting clients' immediate needs to transforming clients through spiritual restoration. Congregations studied met clients' immediate needs. However, clients' accommodational goals were potentially problematic for organizations with spiritual goals.

Contested visions of American democracy: citizenship, public housing, and the international arena.

This essay reexamines the history of public housing and the controversy it generated from the Great Depression to the Cold War. By recasting that history in the global arena, it demonstrates that the debate over public housing versus homeownership was also a debate over the meaning of American citizenship and democracy, pointing up starkly divergent notions about what was and was not American. Through an examination of national conflicts and neglected local struggles, this article further shows that the fight over public housing was far more meaningful and volatile than traditionally assumed. Both critics and advocates of public housing drew from international experiences and imagery in positioning the home as a constitutive feature of citizenship in American democracy. Fears of Bolshevism, fascism, and communism served to internationalize issues of race, space, and housing and together shaped the decision of whether a decent home was an American right or privilege.

Care for the "racially careless": Indian hospitals in the Canadian West, 1920-1950s.

In the 1930s, sanatorium directors and medical bureaucrats warned of the threat to Canadian society of "Indian tuberculosis." Long-standing government policy aimed to isolate Aboriginal people on reserves and in residential schools, while their access to medical care was limited by government parsimony and community prejudice. Characterized as "racially careless" concerning their own health, Aboriginal bodies were seen as a menace to their neighbours and a danger to the nation. By the 1940s state-run racially segregated Indian hospitals institutionalized Aboriginal people who were not welcome in provincial sanatoria or in the modernizing community hospitals. The opening of the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton in 1946, one of the first acts of the newly created department of National Health and Welfare, was a very public demonstration of the state's commitment to define and promote "national health" by isolating and institutionalizing Aboriginal people.

[Care and well-being: female healthcare work in response to the "social question" (1857-1936)]. / Cuidados y bienestar: el trabajo sanitarlo femenino en respuesta a la "cuestión social" (1857-1936).

The healthcare practises performed of midwives, nurses and nurse practitioners in Spain from 1857 to 1936 is analysed. This work deals with micro-history from a feminist perspective, focusing on the identity of these female collectives in the province of Almeria. Both their androcentric discourse and social attitudes towards them are taken into account in an analysis of the way they carried out their duties in comparison with the behaviour of other carers in other regions of Spain. The different types of care provided by them to smooth the "social question" can be established by studying the extent to which matrons, nurses and nurse practitioners contributed to citizens' health and social welfare at that time.