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Possible Louis-René Villermé Bio:

Louis-René Villermé was born outside of Paris in the year 1782. Villermé was a man of many occupatoins; he covered a wide range of professions in his lifetime including: medical student, army surgeon, author, social economist, and member of several medical boards. He studied beneath the gastronomist Gillame Duputren from 1801-1804. Villermé then spent 10 years serving in the army room 1804-1814 under the reign of Napoleon. After his military service, he began work as Secretary-General of the Société Médicale d' Emulation in 1818. Villermé was elected to the Académie de Médecine in 1823.

Villermé was one of the pioneering advocates of hygienic reform and one of the first in France to relate hygienic reform with that of social reform. He conducted numerous studies on health disparities among classes in correlation with wages and living conditions, using his knowledge as a physician to incorporate data analysis as well as social investigations of the working class.

Summary of Villermé's 1840 book Study of the Physical Condition of Cotton, Wool and Silk Workers:

In the year 1840, Villermé published his work Tableau de l'état physique et moral des ouvriers employés dans les manufactures de coton, de laine et de soie (Study of the Physical Condition of Cotton, Wool and Silk Workers). The book was separated into an introduction and two parts. The first part of the book is split into three separate sections, each outlining the physical and moral conditions of different labor forces. Villermé discusses his observations made concerning workers in the cotton, wool, and silk industries. He brings attention to the treacherous working conditions, unfit for adults as well as the danger for young children working alongside the adults, and critiques the low wages provided to workers. There is a comparison throughout the entirety of the first section between the three occupations and different locations throughout France. The second portion of the book includes the topic of health as it relates to dangerous workplaces and the effects of low pay and overcrowding. Villermé covers a wide array of subject matter including: children in the workplace, savings accounts, asylum rooms, and drunkenness among the working class. This work is unique in that it combines health topics with research and social reforms.

Villermé published Des prisons telles qu'elles sont et telles qu'elles devraient etre (On Prisons as They Are and as They Should Be) in 1820. In this work he calls attention to the unhealthy conditions of the prisons in Paris. He outlines several components of the prison systems that he believed should be abolished including: torture, ill treatment, cells, and unequal treatment of prisoners based on the amount of money men are able to give up. Villermé urges the Parisian government to take after the newly reformed prison systems of the United States and Russia. His goal is to persuade officials to reevaluate the unhealthy living environments and treatments of men in prisons so that men are able to become functioning citizens upon their release. This work in particular highlights the multifaceted approach Villermé took in his research, combining knowledge of medicine, data analysis, and social epidemiology.

Villermé’s Tableau discusses the role of industrialization on the general health and quality of life for the laboring class. His perspective in this work is unique in that he maintains that the process of industrialization is not completely to blame. He even suggests the industrial movement to be beneficial for the future of society, calling on examples of industrialization in the United States. He also discusses the role of children working in the textile industry. The point is made that, in some cases, at least half of the workforce in a textile factory is made up of the children of textile workers, many under the age of eighteen. Villermé contrasts the quality of life of workers that maintain family life with those taken over completely by their labor. He blames both the working conditions associated with industrialization as well as the workers themselves to an extent. This work served not only as valuable information to medical institutions and boards, but also as a widely received social statement by the public. It is from this work that Villermé received the title of a sort of moral economist.

In the year 1826, he conducted a study connecting mortality rates with wealth and poverty based on neighborhoods in Paris. Louis-René Villermé is also accounted as the author of the first life expectancy table that directly linked income to mortality rates and life expectancy. He concluded that poor people die younger. This extended into his study in 1829 that reasoned the cause for shorter heights in poorer people was the result of inadequate money to provide proper nutrition.