Konsten att göra barn raka : Ortopedi och vanförevård i Sverige till 1920

Sammanfattning: This thesis deals with the establishment of orthopaedic medicine and the growth ofthe care of "cripples" in Sweden from the beginning of the 19th century to 1920. Itelucidates medical, social and political factors of this historical process, of whieh thefoundations were the interplay of private and public, medicine and care, and philanthropyand public health care. Ortopaedics was introduced in Sweden at the beginning of the 19th century.The treatment eonsisted of both correction technology and physical therapy. Thestudy describes the contexts - for instanee the arising conflict between the orthopaedistsand the 'Iing gymnasts' - and factors, which were significant for orthopaedicsto achive both societal and medical suecess. During the 1890s and the first decades of the 1900s, orthopaedics became an integratedpart of the growing institutionai care of cripples. The aim of such care wasto enable cripples to become self-supporting by means of orthopaedic treatmentand vocational training. Initial1y, care of cripples was a private philantropic matter,but developed successively inta a matter of general concern. By the end of theperiod studied, 1920, the crippled poor were considered as being one of society'ssocial problems as wel1 as a political issue. The measures aimed at aiding the cripples and the contexts in whieh the cripplesbecame the object of various interventions - orthopaedies, the care, politics - revealone significant consequence: the cripples became visible. The fact that they becamevisible can be seen in this historical process which defined and delimited thecripples as one group, as a social category. This occurred at different levels: in everydaylife of the institutions, by means of the medical diagnoses, in the manifestationsof philanthropy and in the categorization arising from the public and politicaldebate.