In the spirit of Pasteur: Édouard Fuster, or democracy based on science

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Restoring working-class districts, that “anti-biological milieu,” was one of the burning causes Édouard Fuster pursued all his life. Neither a socialist nor a true liberal, Fuster’s social philosophy drew not only from the science of Pasteur, but also from a deeply rooted spiritual concern, a practical brand of Christianity, which served as a real guiding thread to his social philosophy, in the same vein as Le Play. Named general secretary of the Alliance d’hygiène sociale (Social Hygiene Alliance) in 1903, he was a moving force of the Mutualité Française (French social security organization). There, he looked into working-class food and housing, the lives of impoverished women with a particular focus on mothers in the working-class districts of Paris, and how tuberculosis wrought havoc in these communities. Compared to the health protection in New York City’s working-class districts, or especially to the German Sozialhygiene system, France fared badly. The working-class French family needed to be reinvented, but under the doctor’s necessary guidance. Reeducation and prevention were Fuster’s goals in Plaisance, Paris, within the framework of the Institut Lannelongue, in Vanves.