Henry Ernest Sigerist (7 April 1891 – 17 March 1957) was a Swiss medical historian and proponent of

universal health care Universal health care (also called universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care) is a health care system in which all residents of a particular country or region are assured access to health care. It is generally organized a ...

.Henry Ernest Sigerist
Encyclopædia Britannica

Career

After graduating with an M.D. at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

in 1917, Sigerist devoted himself to the study of the history of medicine. ''Socialized Medicine in the Soviet Union'' (1937), and ''History of Medicine'' were among his most important works. He emerged as a major spokesman for " compulsory health insurance". From 1932 to 1947 he was director at the

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Institute of History of Medicine. He was elected to the

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in 1945 and the

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in 1951. He received financial aid from the Rockefeller Institute. He attacked the

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because of its conflicting views on socialized medicine. Dr. Sigerist was influential in the creation of socialized medicine in Canada, and made four trips to Canada in the 1930s and 1940s at the invitation of various medical groups to speak on this topic. Under his influence,

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, a Canadian province, introduced state-funded medical and hospital care for pensioners, people on welfare and cancer patients after being hired to write a report in 1944 by

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, the

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of the province representing the

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF; , FCC) was a federal democratic socialism, democratic socialistThe following sources describe the CCF as a democratic socialist political party: * * * * * * and social democracy, social-democ ...

. This was the basis for the eventual adoption of government-funded health care in all of Canada.

Obituaries and influence

Sigerist was featured on the cover of the January 30, 1939 issue of ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

''. Sigerist died in 1957. In 1999 an article in Hopkins Medical News described his view that "the entire history of medicine was spiraling toward one inevitable end: socialized medicine", and said that "he invested all his enthusiasm on the wrong horse — the Soviet Union". An organization of medical historians have named themselves the Sigerist Circle, and books such as ''Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist'' by Theodore M. Brown and Elizabeth Fee have begun to reintroduce Sigerist's legacy to the world.Fee, Elizabeth and Brown, Theodore M. (1997) ''The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist.'' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. He was a mentor to Ilza Veith and Genevieve Miller, who were pioneering women as medical historians.English translation from the Portuguese original
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References

External links

* Henry Ernest Sigerist papers (MS 788). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. *
Henry E. Sigerist: Medical Historian and Social Visionary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sigerist, Henry E Swiss medical historians Physicians from Paris 1891 births 1957 deaths Johns Hopkins University faculty Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Members of the American Philosophical Society