Abstract
The development of "politics of public health" is historically dated. As Foucault noted, it appeared with the broader emergence of the idea of "population" which provides, in the modern era, the conceptual framework of health policies. The existence of a common concept, however, should not hide the evolution of public health and public health policies during the modern and contemporaneous eras. Indeed, Public health in the twentieth century does not face the same problems as in previous centuries. In the 19th century, infectious diseases were a central problem, closely related to that of cities. Cities were modified for questions of hygiene: Haussman's works in the 1860's in Paris for instance. In the 20th century, we might say to a certain extent that cities do not occupy the same centrality in hygiene questions, for public health issues changed: degenerative diseases are substituted to transmitted infectious diseases. The spatial question is to be taken differently then, for the issues of proximity and contamination largely disappear.
