Hiding Syphilis in 19th-Century France

This paper examines the relationship between secrets, sex, and medicine in nineteenth-century France through the history of medical confidentiality. According to the Napoleonic Criminal Code of 1810, doctors who exposed their patients’ medical information would face fines, the potential revocation of their license, and even imprisonment. Doctors themselves framed the expectation of confidentiality as a key element of their professional identity, and the concealment of medical secrets—especially those of a sexual nature, like syphilis—both aggrandized their own authority and supported the interests of families whose reputations hinged upon the appearance of respectability. However, doctors began debating the circumstances under which they should breech medical confidentiality during the last third of the century, as the degeneration theory of Benedict Morel gained influence within medical circles and French society at large. In 1857, Morel argued that wide range of hereditary afflictions signaled the degeneration of the French race, a belief that influenced everything from the practice of medicine to the political and literary sensibilities of the Third Republic. In the increasingly anxious atmosphere of the fin-de-siècle, many French came to view the fate of the nation as dependent on society’s ability to control the sexual behavior of all “degenerates,” leading some doctors to reveal information concerning the diseased bodies of their patients that they had long kept confidential.