(no subject)

[timelets]

The physicians, however, were mandated by no great social movement. They were translators not of public health but of a multitude of doctor-patient relationships.
...
The time of innovation is not like a general grid on which one could point out the "resistances" or "maturity" of social groups from year to year. The time of innovation is the ultimate consequence of the interests of social groups in one another and in theIr movement. Innovation takes time if those interests do not co­incide or cannot be translated by a shared misunderstanding. It moves very quickly when the forces are pulling in the same direction, as in the case of hygiene, and slowly or not at all when the forces oppose one another. The physicians provided a perfect illustration of this essential negotiation of time. As far as science was concerned, they remained as they were-that is, time was suspended for them-until the displacement of the Pasteurian programs finally aligned an in­ novation with the interests of the physicians struggling for their sur­vival, as in the earlier case of the hygienists.

--- BL. TPoF, 1993.