One of the essential conditions for the epistemological ‘thaw’ of medicine at the end of the eighteenth century was the organization of the hospital as an ‘examining’ apparatus. The ritual of the visit was its most obvious form. In the seventeenth century, the physician, coming from the outside, added his inspection to many other controls – religious, administrative, etc.; he hardly participated in the everyday administration of the hospital. Gradually, the visit became more regular, more rigorous, above all more extended: it became an ever more important part of the functioning of the
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