Q: Differentiate between medicine of the species and medicine of social spaces.

different from each other.

Difference :

 Medicine of the species gave strong emphasis on classifying diseases, diagnosing and treating

patients and finding cures.

 Medicine of social spaces is concerned with preventing disease, especially through government

involvement in matters of public hygiene.

Modern medicine traces its birth to Western Europe in the late eighteenth century. In analyzing the

development of French medicine at this time, social theorist Michel Foucault (1973) noted the

emergence of two distinct trends in medical practice. He called that Medicine of the species and

Medicine of Social Spaces.

Medicine of the species :

Medicine of the species pertained to the strong emphasis in Western medicine upon classifying

diseases, diagnosing and treating patients, and finding cures. The human body become an object of

study and observation in order that physiological process could be demystified and brought under

medical control. Physicians perfected their so-called clinical gaze, allowing them to observe and

perceive bodily functions and dysfunctions within a standardized frame of reference. Clinics were

established both to treat patients and train doctors, with the clinical setting providing the optimal

setting for physicians to exercise authority and control over their patients.

Medicine of Social Spaces :

The medicine of social spaces was concerned not with curing diseases, but preventing them. This

meant greater government involvement in regulating the conduct of daily life especially public

hygiene. Physicians served as advisor in the enactment of laws and regulations specifying standards

for food, water, and the disposal of wastes. The health of the human body thus concerned with a

subject of regulation by medical doctors and civil authorities as social norms for healthy behavior

became more widely established. In such a context, Foucault found that scientific concepts of disease

had replaced notions that sickness had metaphysical (religious, magical, superstitious) origins. Disease

was no longer considered an entity outside of the existing boundaries of knowledge, but an object to

be studied, confronted scientifically, and controlled.