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A Hypothesis on the Origin
and Synchrony of the Romanian
and Western Medical Sociology
Bogdan Bucur*
National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest
Abstract: The present article focuses on the eating habits of the population of interwar Romania, as
rendered in the monographic research of the Sociological School of Bucharest, founded and led by
Professor Dimitrie Gusti. It also investigates the health state of the Romanian citizens, mainly, but
not exclusively, of those from rural areas. Our sources of information on the nutrition and public
health of interwar Romania consisted in the studies and research carried out in the 1918–1948 period
by the Sociological School of Bucharest, published in scientific journals and books edited under the
scientific authority of Professor Gusti. In this respect, we have examined, almost in its entirety, the
relevant work published by the Monographic School on the subject of nutrition and public health.
The present article aims, therefore, to summarize the sociological studies and research carried out in
the interwar period, at national level, which we above mentioned. It also aims to bring forward, for
further critical scrutiny, a hypothesis regarding the synchrony between the Romanian medical socio-
logy (of Gustian origin) and the similar scientific movements from the Western countries.
Keywords: sociology of food; medical sociology; Sociological School of Bucharest; interwar
Romania; Dimitrie Gusti.
Cuvinte-cheie: sociologia alimentației; sociologie medicală; Școala Sociologică de la București;
România interbelică; Dimitrie Gusti.
Preliminary Thoughts on the
Theoretical Landmarks and
Methodological Limitations
In the interwar period, the Sociological
School of Bucharest developed an exhaustive
monographic method of investigation and
study of the Romanian village [which was seen
at the time, rather fittingly, as “terra incognita”
(Butoi, 2015, 165)]. This method was based on
the integrated research of four major frame-
works (cosmological, biological, historical and
psychological) and four manifestations (eco-
nomic, spiritual, moral/legal, political/adminis-
* National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (SNSPA), Faculty of Political Science,
Department of Sociology, 30A Expoziţiei Street, 7th Floor, District 1, 012104 Bucharest, Romania.
E-mail: bucur@politice.ro.
trative), in the attempt to contribute, on scien-
tific grounds, on the improvement of the poor
living conditions of the Romanian peasantry
(Gusti, 1946; Rostás, 2005; idem, 2009; Bucur,
2011a; idem, 2013a; idem, 2013b, idem,
2016a). Based on this comprehensive and well-
known theory of the frameworks and manifes-
tations of social life, professor Dimitrie Gusti
(founder and leader of the Sociological School
of Bucharest) developed a working strategy for
the monographic research of the Romanian so-
ciety, with the help of his assistants and colla-
borators. This plan represented an absolute
novelty due to its total contradiction with the
theoretical sociology of the time, practiced
8 Bogdan Bucur, A Hypothesis on the Origin and Synchrony of the Romanian and…
solely at a conceptual level, by a part of the in-
terwar academic elite and intelligentsia. From
the perspective of the monographic methodol-
ogy, the biological framework – which we shall
examine in detail in the current article, and
which consists of the studies or articles on food
habits and on public health carried out in inter-
war Romania by the Sociological School of Bu-
charest, and published in scientific journals un-
der the scientific authority of professor Gusti –
turned out to be one of the most spectacular in-
tellectual endeavors of the Gustian mo-
nographers, and also the biggest challenge
faced by the sociological field research.
According to Western academia, the sub-
jects examined by the Sociological School of
Bucharest, which the Gustian monographic
methodology assigns to the category of the bi-
ological framework, are part of the field of
medical sociology. We should also mention
that, for the Romanian interwar scientific com-
munity, the concepts of social medicine, medi-
cal sociology and social biology were synony-
mous, and therefore used interchangeably1.
Irrespective of its designation, this particular
discipline focused on how the social environ-
ment influenced the health of a human collec-
tivity. Finally, the discipline of social medi-
cine, medical sociology or social biology was
considered a subfield of general sociology
(Banu, 1944, 8–12).
Taking into consideration these methodo-
logical delimitations, we shall further attempt
to comprehensive(ly) look at the Romanian
studies and research conducted in the field of
medical sociology, by the Gusti School, and to
subsequently examine them in contrast to the
evolution of this field of study in the Western
academic world. The hypothesis expressed by
the title of this article consists in the result of
this comparison between the beginnings of Ro-
manian and Western medical sociology.
An essential dimension of the monographic
research carried out by the Gusti School in the
interwar period is the appraisal and attempt of
improving the health state of the population
from the rural areas. In this regard, a crucial
contribution was that of anatomy professor
Francisc Rainer and of his assistants from the
Institute of Anatomy and Embryology of the
Bucharest Faculty of Medicine, in the course of
the monographic campaigns of Nerej [1927],
Fundul Moldovei [1928] and Drăguș [1929]
(Țone, 2012a). Considered the founder of Ro-
manian anthropology, and author of the first
monographic works of rural anthropology, Pro-
fessor Rainer attempted, in the course of the
abovementioned monographic campaigns, to
treat the afflictions that the rural population suf-
fered of, as he offered medical assistance or pro-
fessional advice for a variety of social diseases,
and determined the anthropologic profiles of the
Romanian peasant people (Țone, 2012a). An-
other vital scientific contribution, widely
acknowledged by the international scientific
community and still of reference today2, is the
impressive body of work in the field of sanitary
assistance and social hygiene carried out by
physician Sabin Manuilă [founder of scientific
statistics in Romania (see Annex 1) and Direc-
tor of the Central Institute of Statistics (1934–
1947)]. In the documentation process for the
present work, consulting the Sabin Manuilă
Personal Fond (1853–1947), available at the
National Archives of Romania under inventory
no. 614, is mandatory for the researcher deter-
mined to understand the statistical dimensions
of Romanian interwar morbidity and mortality.
In addition, a series of preliminary observa-
tions on the health assessment of the peasants
from the Bessarabian village of Cornova – one
of the major themes of a monographic campaign
from 1931 – can be found by those interested in
the study Cornova (Basarabia), la 13 ani de la
unirea cu România: portret sanitar [Bessara-
bian Cornova, 13 Years after the Union with Ro-
mania: A Sanitary Portrait] (Țone, 2013b). In
her study Exercițiu de recuperare: portretul
sanitar al comunei Fundul Moldovei în vara an-
ului 1928 [Recovery Attempt: Sanitary Portrait
of Fundu Moldovei Village in the Summer of
1828], Florentina Țone (2012b) considered the
Romanian peasant’s dwelling as an appropriate
indicator for the health status of a settlement
from the interwar era. For those interested in the
medical findings from the villages of Argeș
Sociologie Românească, volumul XIV, Nr. 1, 2016, pp. 7–22 9
county, where research was carried out in the
1938–1939 period by monographic teams
working under the supervision of sociologist
Anton Golopenția, a good work of reference is
the article Echipierii gustieni despre starea san-
itară a satelor României [Gusti’s Teams Mem-
bers on the Sanitary State of the Romanian Vil-
lages] (Golopenția, 2015).
On the subject of peasant nutrition, we
should first note that it represented a funda-
mental concern for the interwar society, as the
rural population of the time was unanimously
considered by researchers as undernourished,
or irrationally nourished (Gusti, 1946, 157). A
major theoretical and methodological contri-
bution to the sociological research of this par-
ticular topic was that of monographer Dumitru
C. Georgescu (1936). Since at that time scien-
tific studies concerning the dietary habits of
the rural population were almost non-existent,
Dumitru C. Georgescu (1936, 6) considered
that a priority of the interwar Romanian soci-
ology should be the systematic collection, pro-
cessing and analysis of information regarding
the peasants’ nutrition (consequently, he de-
signed and conducted a series of extremely rig-
orous sociological inquiries, in terms of data
collection method). Thus, the main subjects of
research he focused on, throughout the mono-
graphic campaigns, were the dietary habits of
the local peasantry, hygiene of the rural house-
hold, and rural morbidity (Țone, 2013a). For
the scientific understanding of the way of feed-
ing of the rural population from Greater Roma-
nia, Traian Herseni and Witold Truszkowski
(1940, 101–107) developed and published, for
the benefit of the Sociological School of
Bucharest, a Plan for the Study of Peasant Eat-
ing Habits. Their main argument for addressing
this subject was that nutrition was not an area
of interest akin only to biology (presented un-
der a numeric form, in order to convey nutri-
tional value), but to sociology and ethnology as
well (since it did much more: it revealed the
customs of the natives). The Plan for the Study
of Peasant Eating Habits requires that in the
course of his inquiry, the sociologist had to
carefully record lists of foods and recipes from
all the peasant households he encountered (ir-
respective of their size, or the owner’s prosper-
ity) (Herseni and Truszkowski, 1940, 101–
107). The Plan for the Study of Peasant Eating
Habits was first put into practice by the Socio-
logic School of Bucharest, in a very thorough,
almost comprehensive manner, and the results
were compiled in the book Nerej: un village
d’une région archaïque: monographie soci-
ologique (Stahl, 1939a). The research con-
sisted in sociological enquiries on the amount
and structure of the dietary regimen of the pop-
ulation from the Nerej village in Vrancea, car-
ried out in the summer of 1927 (under the guid-
ance of Academician Dimitrie Gusti); both
quantity and energy value were recorded. The
results showed that even though, measured in
energy intake, the food prepared in the typical
household form Nerej appeared satisfactory,
this wouldn’t reflect on the overall health of
the locals, since they were negatively impacted
by excessive use of alcoholic beverages, and
by rigorous fasting (imposed by the Romanian
Orthodox Church, which issued an interdiction
on the consumption of foods of animal origin
for almost 170 days of the year) (Stahl, 1939a,
193–206). In addition to the data recorded in
Nerej, the Sociological School of Bucharest in-
vestigated, in 1929, the situation from Drăguș
village, in Făgăraș County, where the mono-
graphic teams observed and recorded the main
dishes prepared daily by the locals, as well as
foods and dishes prepared on various special
occasions (such as weddings) (Popoiu, 2010,
97–103).
However, near the end of the interwar pe-
riod, the scientific interest into the dietary hab-
its of the population surpassed the sphere of the
Sociological School of Bucharest. More and
more Romanian researchers (mostly physi-
cians) grew interested in the matter, which they
approached with dedication and passion3. We
should also add that the examination and im-
provement effort regarding the deficient diet of
the rural population was a legitimate, ongoing
enterprise, not only for social scientists from
Romania (regardless of their affiliation with
the Sociological School of Bucharest), but also
10 Bogdan Bucur, A Hypothesis on the Origin and Synchrony of the Romanian and…
for those from the rest of the Balkans, Latin
America or Western Europe4.
Outside of the work of the Sociological
School of Bucharest – that the present article
shall further expand on – an exceptional scien-
tific contribution to the research on the local
population’s hygiene and food regimen in the
interwar era was that of the editorial team from
Revista de igienă socială [Journal of Social
Hygiene] (1931–1944), publication founded
and led by physician Gheorghe Banu, former
Minister of Health and Social Assistance
(1937–1938). In a similar fashion, though not
dealing with the interwar period, the book
România medicilor: medici, țărani și igienă
rurală în România de la 1860 la 1910 [Physi-
cians’ Romania: Physicians, Peasants and
Rural Hygiene in Romania from 1860 to
1910] (Bărbulescu, 2015) offers an account of
the sanitary and dietary disaster found both in
rural and urban areas of Wallachia. Closer to
contemporary times, we should mention issue
no. 3/2013 of the Sociologie Românească
[Romanian Sociology] magazine, with the
subject: Individual and social perspectives on
health, disease and health care system. In his
book, Sociologie medicală [Medical Sociol-
ogy], Ștefan Petra (2007) published a series of
studies on the health of the Romanian popu-
lation in late twentieth century. Iustin Lupu
and Ioan Zanc (1999) also authored a Roma-
nian manual of Sociologie medicală [Medical
Sociology]. We should add that neither of
these last two books deals with the contribu-
tion of the Sociological School of Bucharest
to the development of medical sociology in
Romania. The same applies to Sociologia
sănătății și a bolii [The Sociology of Health
and Illness] (Rădulescu, 2002).
We should not leave out the various re-
ports and studies on sanitation and nutrition
drafted by local public or private organiza-
tions, such as: The Ministry of Public Health
and Social Assistance, the National Society of
Red Cross from Romania, the Health Home,
the National Office of Social Hygiene, and
the County Sanitary Inspectorates. Of these,
of particular significance is Albumul statistic
al igienei preventive, asistenței medicale și al
asistenței sociale [
The Statistical Album of
Preventive Hygiene, Health Care and Social
Assistance], issued in 1927 by the Directorate
for Statistics and Propaganda from the Minis-
try of Public Health and Social Assistance.
The Album contains official statistical data on
the organization of the national sanitary and
medical services, as well as on social assis-
tance, prevention of epidemics, eradication of
social diseases and on the distribution of hos-
pitals, nursing homes, outpatient clinics and
health spas.
To conclude, from a personal perspective,
the present study represents an attempt to fur-
ther improve and elaborate on a previously
published article [Population Health in Inter-
war Romania Reflected in the Sociological
School of Bucharest’s Research and Publica-
tions (Bucur, 2016b)]. Therefore, the main pur-
pose of this paper is to formulate a hypothesis
concerning the Gustian origin of Romanian
medical sociology, which we intend to submit
for critical debate to the scientific community
in this particular field (a theoretical approach
that was lacking from the previous study). To
achieve the goal we will compile, in the fol-
lowing development of ideas, a comprehensive
review of the monographic research conducted
at national level, between the two world wars,
by the Sociological School of Bucharest, in ar-
eas ascribed the biological framework, and
published in scientific papers under the scien-
tific authority of Professor Gusti. Lastly, we
shall address the matter of the synchrony be-
tween Romanian medical sociology and simi-
lar scientific movements in Western societies.
The Beginnings of Romanian
Sociological Research in the
Field of Public Nutrition
An area of scientific interest for the Sociolo-
gical School of Bucharest was the correlation
between the widespread physical underdevelop-
ment affecting school-age children from Greater
Sociologie Românească, volumul XIV, Nr. 1, 2016, pp. 7–22 11
Romania and their improper nourishment. After
analyzing and statistically processing results of
sociological research carried, in the interwar pe-
riod, on samples of youth from rural and urban
areas, Anatole Cressin (1937) observed that an
incorrect diet, poor in vitamins, and quantitati-
vely and qualitatively insufficient, led to the
emergence of physiological debilities. Malnou-
rished [as is insufficiently fed] schoolchildren
(62 per cent in Bucovina and 36 per cent in Bu-
charest) and severely malnourished ones (14.3
per cent in Bucovina and 29.7 per cent in Bu-
charest) represented a fraction of 2/3 to 3/4 of
the entire school population of Romania at that
time. On the other hand, a significant proportion
of the school-age children (47 per cent in the ur-
ban environment, 39.3 per cent in the rural en-
vironment) were found to be in poor health [in
the sense that they ranked below average physi-
cal development]. Depending on their resi-
dence, in the interwar period, schoolchildren
either had nothing to eat in the morning (from
6.5 per cent to 11.4 per cent), or were given tea
with no bread (from 7.7 per cent to 47.7 per
cent). In addition, the percentage of school-age
children that were fed polenta at all meals was
between 73.5 per cent and 84 per cent. We can
thus safely say that nation-wide, only one quar-
ter to one third of all school age children were
appropriately fed, and only half of them were
normally developed physically (Cressin, 1937,
212–214). The same situation was encountered
in the village of Holda from Neamț County,
where, in 1939, most of the children were
physically underdeveloped, on the account of
irregular feeding. Moreover, out of all the chil-
dren up to 14 years of age, 66.1 per cent were
suffering from various afflictions caused by
lack of hygiene, the most widespread disease
locally being scabies (29.3 per cent) (Școala…,
1939, 225–229). In depth information regar-
ding the diet of the pregnant women and of
their infants are offered as well (Școala…,
1939, 239). These findings are supported by
the research of schoolteacher Alexandru Vidi-
can (1938, 381–382), on the diet of 400 pri-
mary school children from Căianul-Mic, So-
meș County, who exhibited noticeable signs of
intellectual and physical weakness. An enquiry
carried out for eight days, in the school-year
1936/1937, by the teacher, revealed that 14 per
cent of them came to school in the morning on
an empty stomach, 60 per cent had only po-
lenta to eat, and the rest of 26 per cent had soup
or polenta with meat. At noon, their meal con-
sisted of polenta with milk, sausages or clear
soup (for 78 per cent of cases), bread or polenta
alone (for 18 per cent), with the remaining four
per cent being given nothing to eat. At dinner,
40 per cent of them had polenta, 18 per cent
only bread, and 42 per cent, polenta with sour
cream. The most alarming aspect, however,
was the fact that even though some families
were prosperous and had at their disposal the
proper ingredients, the housewives simply did
not know how to prepare the food, and showed
complete ignorance on the matter of healthy di-
ets for their children (Vidican, 1938, 381–382).
Another research, this time in the village of
Șanț, from Năsăud County, subject to a mono-
graphic investigation carried out by the Gusti
School in 1935–1936, revealed the following
regarding the dietary situation of the children up
to 14 years: 42.7 per cent had a normal diet, 20.9
per cent suffered from malnourishment, 3.1 per
cent from increased malnourishment, and 30.3
per cent from moderate overeating (Herseni,
1936, 37). Similarly, in the Belinț village, from
Timiș-Torontal County, that was the subject of a
monographic investigation carried out by the
Banat-Crișana Social Institute in 1934, 60.2 per
cent of the local children were underweight, and
the diet of the locals was found insufficient in
41.9 per cent of the households (Georgescu,
1938, 390). Veturia Manuilă (1939) discovered
a similar state of malnourishment and physical
retardation amongst children from the urban en-
vironment, according to the result of her survey
on the health status of 1,425 children from 765
families in the Tei district of Bucharest:
Of 1,425 children, 502 are visibly anemic
and undernourished, which means that 35 per
cent of all non-infant children are ill. [...] 783
of the children, more than half of them, live in
a single room, deemed insalubrious. Out of
12 Bogdan Bucur, A Hypothesis on the Origin and Synchrony of the Romanian and…
these children, 446 are anemic and undernour-
ished, and 210 sick. [...] From the families
who live in a single room categorized as salu-
brious, in the group of those with four children
(therefore six persons in a room) there are 92
children, out of which 40 are undernourished
and 25 sick (Manuilă, 1939, 173).
If this was the case with children, the diet
of the adults was, unsurprisingly, just as defi-
cient. For instance, studying the dietary habits
of the groups of harvester women from the vil-
lages of Cuhea (Maramureș County) and
Telciu (Năsăud County), Florea Florescu
(1937, 510) discovered that they each carried
in their sack food consisting in three loafs of
bread (of approximately 8 kg), and some
cheese, which they ate while on their way to
the crops. On a whole day of working on the
fields, the harvesters from Cuhea fed them-
selves bread and milk (for breakfast), broth
with meat (for lunch), bread (as afternoon
snack), green beans with potatoes (for dinner);
those from Telciu ate bread and cheese (for
breakfast), meat broth (for lunch), cheese pie
(afternoon snack) and noodles with milk (for
dinner) (Florescu, 1937, 510). In another
study, from 1939, Petre Lenghel-Izanu de-
scribes the typical diet of the Romanian peas-
ant from Bârsana, Maramureș County, which
was as frugal as it was unhealthy. His main
conclusion – valid for the entire Romanian
cultural space – is that women from
Maramureș simply did not know how to pre-
pare the food. Even the housewives from the
more thriving families, who had all the neces-
sary ingredients at hand, prepared plain, taste-
less dishes. Thus, the standard diet consisted
of corn flour bread and polenta (which was
eaten with sour cream, milk, cheese or cottage
cheese). On average, a resident of Bârsana
consumed merely 4–5 kg of meat annually.
Wheat bread was eaten only on certain occa-
sions or exceptional events, such as Christmas
Day, Easter celebration, weddings, baptisms
or funerals. In spring, the main foods eaten
were vegetables and lettuce. Summer meals
were prepared from potatoes, green beans and
pumpkin, in addition to the daily corn bread,
polenta and milk. Autumn and winter food
consisted mostly of beans, potatoes and cab-
bage (Lenghel-Izanu, 1939, 271–272). In
1938, in Bessarabia, on the banks of Prut
River, in the Văleni village from Cahul
County, the food of the locals was also inade-
quate, unbalanced and erratic; with the peas-
ants living on cherry plums and fruit mush in
summer and on polenta and porridge in winter
(Știrbu, 1938, 521). The investigations carried
out by the Sociological School of Bucharest in
the fishermen community from Turtucaia, Du-
rostor County, revealed an insufficient and un-
balanced diet as well (Mărculescu-Dunăre,
1939, 246). Typically, the locals were eating
fresh or salted fish, polenta, and only on fes-
tive days, homemade bread (Mărculescu-
Dunăre, 1939, 249). Even in the case of the
wealthier peasant families from the Merișor
hamlet, Hunedoara County, who owned up to
100 sheep, 10 large cattle and more than 30
hectars of land, the dietary habits, examined
by Ion Vintilescu (1937, 505) were markedly
archaic and rudimentary. These families con-
sumed food that was scarce and unsubstantial,
due to their deep-rooted habit of eating over-
salted cheese, of low nutritive value (Vin-
tilescu, 1937, 505). However, inquiries on the
dietary habits of local notabilities showed that
the latter represented an exception, having had
a relatively high life standard5. On this matter,
researcher Alexandru Bărbat (1938, 30–31)
published an inventory and a detailed budget
for the 1936–1937 period, regarding the nutri-
tion of the family of former mayor Dumitru
Munteanu of Ucea de Sus, Făgăraș County.
A fit conclusion is that formulated by Pro-
fessor Gusti in his analysis and commentary on
the dietary habits of the rural populace, based
on the social observation sheets compiled by
the Royal Student Teams during the mono-
graphic and cultural work campaign carried
out in the year of 1938, in a number of 55 vil-
lages from all over Greater Romania:
Nutrition, although satisfactory in most of
the cases in terms of average quantities of raw
Sociologie Românească, volumul XIV, Nr. 1, 2016, pp. 7–22 13
products consumed, is flawed due to exces-
sive use of corn, low consumption of animal
products and fresh food (only 48 per cent of
the households owned a milk cow), due to
lack of knowledge in the preparation of food,
and to very poor food hygiene. The most se-
vere deficiency of the peasant diet is, how-
ever, its unbalanced character, the peasant
family undergoing periods of overeating dur-
ing winter, strictly from a quantitative point
of view, followed by long malnourishment
periods during summer […]. Alcoholism is a
consequence of this malnourishment and lack
of variation. The result is an increased fre-
quency of acute gastrointestinal diseases, es-
pecially in children over a year, and of
chronic digestive diseases in the adult popu-
lation, as shown by the consultation records
of the dispensaries organized by the Teams
(Gusti, 1938, 435).
The Beginnings of Romanian
Sociologic Research in the Field
of Public Health
Despite the best efforts the Sociological
School of Bucharest and its tireless work car-
ried out between 1934–1939 by way of the
Royal Student Teams and Social Service Teams
(who managed to intervene in only two per cent
of the villages of interwar Romania, the most),
the sanitary state of the rural space remained es-
sentially precarious (Bucur, 2013a, 98–99). De-
spite Professor Gusti’s hopes of teaching the ru-
ral population how to live and eat properly, or
how to lead a healthy life, these remained noth-
ing but mere illusions (Gusti, 1938, 435). As
we pointed out and elaborated upon in a previ-
ously published article [Population Health in
Interwar Romania Reflected in the Sociological
School of Bucharest’s Research and Publica-
tions (Bucur, 2016b)], by the end of the inter-
war period, due to poverty, poor alimentation,
lack of hygiene or health care, Romania was in
a critical medical situation, desperate even, in
comparison with Western Europe. Even though
the authorities did their best to deal with this
situation, Romania was the country with the
highest rate of infant mortality in Europe (the
main cause of death being congenital debility).
In addition, when it came to school-age popu-
lation, the overwhelming majority of pupils
were insufficiently fed, and half of them suf-
fered from subnormal physical development.
Traian Herseni (1936, 35–42) believed that
only the personal involvement of King Carol II
could possibly have led to an improvement of
the health of the Romanian peasantry, affected
by poor diet, precarious hygiene, untreated ill-
nesses and a retrograde mentality (Beloiu,
1938, 203–204; Bordușani, 1935, 6; Clopoțel,
1928, 14; Echipa Năpădeni, 1935, 2; Echipa
Sâmbăteni, 1935, 2; Imbrescu, 1936, 5; Io-
nescu-Romanați, 1937, 4; Locusteanu, 1934,
171–174, 179–180; M.S. Regele la Echipa
Ferdinand, 1935, 4–5; Manuilă, 1937, 88;
Marinescu-Nour, 1934, 216–217; Measnicov,
1937, 160–164; Olănești, 1935, 6; Popescu and
Cazan, 1936, 2; Raport…, 1934, 210v; Stahl,
1939b, 86; Todan, 1935, 6; Țoneș and Cosma,
1936, 5). To make sense of the high morbidity
and mortality rates of the interwar era, another
fact should be taken into account as well: the
extremely low number of physicians (only
7,162 for a total population of 18 million). Of
these, only 1,935 were working in rural areas
(where 80 per cent of the population resided).
In the opinion of Dr. Sabin Manuilă (1938,
227–228), the country needed, at that time, at
least a double number of doctors, compared
with the existing figure. For these reasons, in
the interwar period, over 60 per cent of the de-
ceased had never received adequate medical
treatment (the main causes of death were tuber-
culosis, pneumonia, heart disease, nephritis,
cancer, pellagra and syphilis) (Measnicov,
1937, 163–167). Particularly in the rural areas,
the situation was desperate in every of the as-
pects discussed above (Georgescu, 1937, 68;
Gheorghiu, 1937, 80–83; Manuilă and
Georgescu, 1938, 136).
Unfortunately, the health state of the pop-
ulation was not much different in urban areas
either. Veturia Manuilă studied the medical and
locative situation of the 765 impoverished fam-
ilies from the Bucharest Tei neighborhood of
14 Bogdan Bucur, A Hypothesis on the Origin and Synchrony of the Romanian and…
workers. On this occasion, she found that 43
per cent of adults were ill, while 35 per cent of
children were sick or undernourished. Over 50
per cent of the homes investigated were unsan-
itary, and had only one room and one bed,
where the whole family slept (Manuilă 1939,
170–173). Other sociological surveys focused
on the deplorable social and sanitary circum-
stances in which the university students from
the capital city lived. Thus, the students of
Bucharest came mostly from poor families,
lived in unsanitary dormitories, ate poorly and
meagerly, and had to work in order to support
themselves; to complete the picture, 25 per cent
of them were underdeveloped physically, and
50 per cent suffered from various contagious
diseases (Bucur, 2011b, 34–38; Câmpineanu,
1931, 3; idem, 1932a, 3; idem, 1932b, 3; idem,
1932c, 3; idem, 1932d, 3; idem, 1932e, 3;
Sdrobiș, 2013, 29–30). Generally, the student
life in interwar Bucharest was characterized by
morbidity and promiscuity, poor personal hy-
giene, lack of sexual education (which resulted
in 20–25 per cent of the students contracting
venereal diseases as early as high school), in-
sufficient nutrition and alcoholism (Pogojeanu,
1934, 1936). The main consequences of these
deficiencies were the mass dropout of students
(only 25 per cent of those enrolled in the first
year would eventually graduate) and their com-
mitment to political extremism (by enrollment
in the Legionary Movement) (Sdrobiș, 2015,
143). In this vein, the sociology of education
has validated, in theory, the correlation between
a poor education and a series of negative socio-
economic factors influencing it:
For those belonging to one of the most dis-
advantaged categories, that of the poor, a com-
bination of factors can have the most serious
impact on the pursuit of education: lack of fi-
nancial resources, shabby and overcrowded
homes, a rich medical history combined with
lack of access to health care services and lack
of access to nurseries or kindergartens. This
can happen both directly, through their effects
on the affordability of education, and indi-
rectly, by affecting the child’s physical and
mental abilities (Vlăsceanu, 2010, 621).
The Beginnings of Western
Medical Sociology and its
Synchrony with the Research of
the Sociological School of
Bucharest on the Biological
Framework
After having established and elaborated on
the Gustian origin of the Romanian medical
sociology, we further intend to show that, in
the interwar period, this discipline was con-
temporary with the international scientific
movement of the field. Respectively, we shall
illustrate how the vast array of sociological re-
search on public health carried out by the So-
ciological School of Bucharest coincided with
similar efforts carried out in the Western
world, specifically with the institutionalization
and development of general sociology and of
medical sociology in particular. Thus, in The
Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology,
William Cockerham (2001, XI) considers that
medical sociology, as a subfield of general so-
ciology, began to develop in a systematic man-
ner in the United States in the late 1940s, alt-
hough the intellectual interests on public health
research had their roots in the social medicine
practiced in the nineteenth century in England,
France and Germany (Collyer, 2010, 86–87).
With government funding, after the end of the
Second World War, American specialists in
medical sociology began to investigate how
changing social conditions affected human
health. It is true that in this early period, medi-
cal sociology could not claim scientific auton-
omy, having been in a state of (primarily finan-
cial) dependency, especially from medicine
(Cockerham, 2001, 3–4). Therefore, between
1879–1935, the scientific literature in the field
of American medical sociology was written by
physicians, rather than by sociologists (Cock-
erham, 2011, 236). Eventually, its establish-
ment as a subfield of general sociology would
bring medical sociology its recognition and
well-deserved scientific prestige (Cockerham,
2001, 3–4). In contradiction with this official
Sociologie Românească, volumul XIV, Nr. 1, 2016, pp. 7–22 15
history of the origins of medical sociology in
the United States, in the mid-twentieth century,
Fran Collyer (2010, 89) constructed – in her
work, Origins and Canons: Medicine and the
History of Sociology – a comprehensive analy-
sis aimed at recovering the sociological works
on mortality, morbidity and health written be-
tween 1800–1920 by Claude-Henri de Saint-
Simon, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Frederick
Engels, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. Col-
lyer (2010, 90–91) showed that the founding
fathers of European sociology took part, dur-
ing the nineteenth century, on public debates
regarding the relationship between pauperism
and morbidity, supported the reform of medi-
cal education, promoted radical social change,
demanded an active role of the state in matters
of public health, campaigned to eradicate pov-
erty, theorized on how medical conditions (like
hunger, disability, alcoholism, poverty, infant
mortality) should be considered social and not
individual phenomena, etc. Also, Samuel Wil-
liam Bloom (2002, 19) maintained – in Wo rd
as Scalpel: A History of Medical Sociology –
that scientific research in the field of medical
sociology (defined, in terms of a social sci-
ence, as social medicine, public health or so-
cial hygiene) began as early as the nineteenth
century. Therefore, since the mid-nineteenth
century, Western societies were ready to accept
a new scientific construct – under the name of
social medicine, public health or social hy-
giene –, which stated that social factors influ-
enced health problems.
This was a period when the terms “public
health”, “social hygiene”, and “social medi-
cine” were often used interchangeably. The
idea of “medicine as social science” was
dropped (Bloom, 2002, 19).
Moreover, this period marks the first use of
the term medical sociology, by John Shaw Bil-
lings, in 1879, in the United States, in a paper
in which the study of hygiene is linked to soci-
ological research. In the following period, a
number of American authors – like Charlie
McIntire (1894), Elizabeth Blackwell (1902)
or James Warbasse (1909) – would publish va-
rious works in the field of medical sociology.
An aspect of particular importance for the pa-
rallel we intend to draw with the Sociological
School of Bucharest is the introduction of so-
cial medicine as a university discipline for the
first time, at Harvard University, in 1905, by
Richard Clarke Cabot. Richard Clarke Cabot
was the first professor of social ethics who bro-
ught together the study of social medicine and
sociology under the Department of Social Et-
hics, established in 1920 at Harvard Univer-
sity. Professor Cabot is considered the founder
of social medicine (Bloom, 2002, 19–21). Des-
pite its roots in the European intellectual tradi-
tion of the nineteenth century, the emergence
of medical sociology should therefore be un-
derstood in the context of the introduction of
this particular subject in the curricula of Ame-
rican universities, in early twentieth century
(Bloom, 2002, 23). In the interwar period, so-
ciology in general and medical sociology in
particular, were able to develop and instituti-
onalize in the United States (most American
universities establishing a department of soci-
ology) (Bloom, 2002, 39–41).
This conception regarding the birth of me-
dical sociology in the American universities,
at the beginning of the twentieth century,
should be correlated and complemented with
the European intellectual and academic tradi-
tion from the second half of the nineteenth
century on the beginnings of the study of so-
cial hygiene. Thus, in Europe, the first depar-
tments of social hygiene were created in En-
gland (1860), Romania (1861), Germany
(1865) and Russia (1871), and were chaired by
E. Al. Parkes, Iacob Felix, Max von Petten-
kofer and V. A. Subbotin (Ursea, 2001, 919).
A remarkable contribution to the European
and academic recognition of social hygiene
was that of Professor Iacob Felix (1901, 20),
the founder of scientific hygiene in Romania
(Ilea, Pruteanu and Grosz, 1966, 77). An
analysis of the contribution of Romanian and
Western schools of social medicine supports
the idea of scientific synchrony between the
two (Buda, 2013, 180; Ursea, 2001, 919–928).
16 Bogdan Bucur, A Hypothesis on the Origin and Synchrony of the Romanian and…
To an extent, this phenomenon of
synchrony regarding the study of social hygi-
ene in the European universities from the se-
cond half of the twentieth century can be com-
pared with the beginnings of academic
sociology, at the end of the nineteenth century
and the beginning of the twentieth century, in
Europe and the United States. One of the re-
markable moments of this period was the esta-
blishment of the first Romanian School of So-
ciology6. The Monographic School of
Bucharest was founded at the initiative of Pro-
fessor Dimitrie Gusti, member (1919–1948)
and President (1944–1946) of the Romanian
Academy, head of the department of History of
Greek Philosophy, Ethics and Sociology at the
University of Iași (1910–1920) and of the de-
partment of Sociology, Ethics, Politics and
Aesthetics at the University of Bucharest
(1920–1947). At the same time as Professor
Gusti, in the Romanian academia, was chair of
the Department of Sociology (since 1910), the
first departments of sociology were being esta-
blished in the United States (1892), France
(1895), England (1904), Germany (1919) and
Poland (1920), for Albion W. Small, Émile
Durkheim, Edward Alexander Westermarck,
Max Weber and Florian Witold Znaniecki. The
development of Romanian and Western socio-
logy, at an academic level, is thus synchronous.
What is more, both Émile Durkheim (the foun-
der of the French school of sociology and the
first holder of a chair of sociology in Europe)
and Dimitrie Gusti (the founder of Romanian
sociology) studied in Germany under Profes-
sor Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (the founder
of modern psychology).
Since 1925, the Sociological School of
Bucharest launched numerous monographic re-
search campaigns in the Romanian villages,
given that public health was considered a major
area of interest and a critical component of the
Gustian sociological methodology (Gusti, 1946;
Rostás 2005; idem, 2009; Bucur, 2011a; idem
2013a; idem, 2013b, idem, 2016a). The results
of this enterprise were published – under the sci-
entific authority of the Sociological School of
Bucharest or of the professional organizations7
set up by Professor Gusti – in numerous books
and magazines, of which we should mention the
prestigious Sociologie Românească [Romanian
Sociology] (1936–1943), Arhiva pentru Ști-
ința și Reforma Socială [Archive for Science
and Social Reform] (1919–1943), Revista In-
stitutului Social Banat-Crișana [Journal of
Banat-Crișana Social Institute] (1933–1946),
Buletinul Institutului Social Român din
Basarabia [Bulletin of the Romanian Social
Institute of Bessarabia] (1937), Buletinul In-
stitutului de Cercetări Sociale al României –
Regionala Chișinău [Bulletin of the Social Re-
search Institute of Romania – Chișinău Branch]
(1938) and the periodicals Curierul Echipelor
Studențești [Student Teams Courier] (1934–
1938) and Curierul Serviciului Social [Social
Service Courier] (1938–1939). In the 1934–
1939 period, the Royal Student Teams and So-
cial Service Teams, under the direction of Pro-
fessor Gusti, included specialists in human
and veterinary medicine, whose purpose con-
sisted in improving health in rural areas. Un-
fortunately, the Soviet military occupation of
Romania, after the Second World War, resulted
in the retirement of Professor Gusti (in 1947)
and the ban of sociology (in 1948). This was fol-
lowed by the communist repression against hu-
manist academics and intellectuals, and the in-
dexing of Romanian sociology (as a result, two
of the Assistant professors of Professor Gusti –
Anton Golopenția and Mircea Vulcănescu – met
their death in communist prisons). Eventually,
the Bucharest School of Sociology sank into
oblivion. In this context, we hope that in the fu-
ture, a history of medical sociology will perhaps
mention the Gustian School and its contribution
to this field of study.
Conclusions
The reader of this article will easily con-
clude that the deficient nutrition of the Roma-
nian peasant was mainly caused by its exces-
sive use of polenta (despite being consumed
with other dairy products). They will also agree
Sociologie Românească, volumul XIV, Nr. 1, 2016, pp. 7–22 17
that in the rural environment, unbalanced nutri-
tion was not economically driven: even in the
well-off households, with all the ingredients at
hand, the housewives prepared simple and
tasteless foods, because they did not know how
to cook. The negative effects on the health state
of the local peasantry, caused by an insufficient
(lacking in vitamins) or unilateral (based only
on corn) alimentation, have been the subject of
study for a number of specialists from the Ro-
manian monographic movement8. Therefore,
the Sociological School of Bucharest consid-
ered that, in order to adopt any remedial or cor-
rective measures, a comprehensive investiga-
tion on the diet of the peasant population,
carried out at a national level, was first called
for (Ionescu, 1937, 453).
When it came to medical services, interwar
Romania faced a crisis as well. Even in the
fairly wealthier villages, the sanitary situation
was disastrous, as was the case also with the
educated social group of the students from the
capital city. According to Professor Gusti him-
self, even in the more prosperous villages of
the country, the average mortality exceeded 20
per mil (figure even higher than that of neigh-
boring countries, where the mortality index
was 15 per mil). In Greater Romania, every
third child died before reaching 1 year of age.
Utter lack of hygiene and poor nutrition char-
acterized even the homes of wealthy peasants
(through excessive consumption of corn and
low consumption of meat, or through lack of
knowledge in preparing healthy meals, which
led to chronic diseases of the digestive system)
(Gusti, 1938, 434–435). Moreover, we should
mention the rampant illiteracy (at a rate of 43
per cent in 1930), one of the largest in Europe
at that time (Bartoș, 1938, 372; Manuilă and
Georgescu, 1938, 142).
Another conclusion the reader of this arti-
cle will agree upon is the unmitigated interest
of the Sociological School of Bucharest in re-
searching the dietary habits of the population,
and in identifying realistic measures of sani-
tary intervention in the rural communities,
aimed at ameliorating the existing deficien-
cies. Issues pertaining to healthcare and food,
affiliated to the biological framework, were,
therefore, extremely important for the Gustian
School, as they addressed – demographically –
the very survival of the biological species (in
general) and the cultural development of the
Romanian people (in particular). We should
mention that – in its sociological approach of
health-related topics – the School of Bucharest
does not share the questionable and objection-
able racist conceptions of the era (biopolitics
and eugenics). Moreover, given that mono-
graphic sociology has been defined by Gusti as
a science of the Romanian nation, its founder
felt that the health and eating habits of the pop-
ulation had to be topics of primary interest to
society (and of primary concern for the gov-
ernment officials). This perspective puts the
Romanian sociological research in the field of
medical sociology amongst its contemporary
counterparts, alongside with the American and
European scientific endeavor in this area. De-
spite not having explicitly used the term medi-
cal sociology (due to the integrative methodo-
logical architecture), the biological framework
(which addressed the issues of public hygiene
and food) was an integral part of the Romanian
monographic sociology. Furthermore, Profes-
sor Gusti (1946) used the fundamental concept
of sociologia militans, which he saw as a so-
cially active discipline, thoroughly engaged in
the affairs of state, unrestricted to neutrally
measuring and researching the various social
realities of the Romanian society, with the pur-
pose of alleviating the situation, as much as
possible, but only through legal and ethical
means (and always in collaboration with local
and central government authorities). That is
why, in addition to their primary activity of so-
ciological investigation, the Royal Student
Teams and the Social Service Teams included
amongst their members, specialists in human
and veterinary medicine (who treated the dis-
eases of suffering people and animals in house-
holds) and in housekeeping (who provided
useful advice and practical lessons about the
preparation of healthy food and the efficient
organization of the peasant household). Unfor-
tunately, despite the assiduous efforts of the
18 Bogdan Bucur, A Hypothesis on the Origin and Synchrony of the Romanian and…
Gustian School – that even entailed legislative
measures [aimed at the reform the Romanian
health system (Ionescu, 1937, 446–451; Pupeza
et al., 1938, 497–498)] –, the general state of
health of the Romanian population did not reg-
ister a significant improvement. Beyond this
regrettable lack of efficiency, what remains,
however, is the memory of a Romanian move-
ment of medical sociology, as active and rele-
vant as its American and European counter-
parts of the time.
Notes
1 Between the late nineteenth century and early
twentieth century, in the Western scientific world, the
fields of social hygiene (centered on the prevention of
disease) and of social medicine (centered on the treat-
ment of disease) begin to overlap (Rădulescu, 2002,
29). In addition to his phenomena, in the United
States, in the interwar period, the notions of medical
sociology and social medicine are being used inter-
changeably (Rădulescu, 2002, 33). On the other hand,
it is true that social medicine owes its coming into ex-
istence, among other factors, to the inclusion of the
bio-sociological interpretation into the area of socio-
logical study (Rădulescu, 2002, 37). Therefore, for
the establishment of social medicine, an equally es-
sential part was played by the physicians’ interest in
the areas of public health and social hygiene and by
the sociologists’ efforts to highlight the social causes
of disease. Quite often, the roles of the physicians and
of the sociologists coincided (Rădulescu, 2002, 33).
2 Following the definitive establishment of the
totalitarian communist regime in Romania, physi-
cian Sabin Manuilă, an important collaborator of the
Sociological School of Bucharest, chose exile and
settled in the United States, in 1948; here he worked
with a number of international organizations, active
in the fields of public health and nutrition, such as
The Institute for Food Research (Stanford Univer-
sity) and World Health Organization.
3 It should be noted that Dumitru C. Georgescu
(1939, 314–319) reviewed, for the journal Sociolo-
gie Românească [Romanian Sociology], a series of
recently published works (at that time), dealing
with Romanian nutrition, such as: Anchetă asupra
alimentației țăranului din Munții Apuseni [Inquiry
on Peasant Food in the Apuseni Mountains]
(Grigore Benetato, 1936), Cercetări asupra ali-
mentației țăranului moldovean, cu observațiuni
asupra regimului pelagroșilor [Research on Mol-
davian Peasant Food, with Notes on the Pellagra
Food Regimen] (Moise Enescu and A. Radenschi,
1937), Alimentația muncitorului [The Nutrition of
the Laborer] (George Băltăceanu 1939), Alimenta-
ția poporului român, în cadrul antropogeografiei și
istoriei economice [The Dietary Habits of the Ro-
manian People seen by Anthropo-geography and
Economic History] (Ioan Claudian, 1939).
4 For instance, sociological enquiry carried out
between 1935–1936 in 939 households from 193 vil-
lages spread across Bulgaria concluded that the food
regimen of the locals was too rich in carbohydrates
and too limited in range. Their diet consisted in 72
per cent cereal, 10 per cent meat, nine per cent fruits
and vegetables, six per cent milk and eggs, two per
cent alcoholic beverages and one per cent sugar, rice
and others. A share of 82.6 per cent of all the con-
sumed food came from own resources (Golopenția,
1938, 598). The Sociological School of Bucharest
also took an interest in the government policies pro-
moted in Chile for healthy eating and for alleviating
the effects of the lack of vitamins in nutrition
(Galitzi, 1939, 29). On the other hand, a comparison
made by Tiberiu Morariu (1942) between the diet of
Romanian and French shepherds (from the Carpathi-
ans and the Alps respectively), in the interwar pe-
riod, revealed that the food of the latter was much
more varied. Thus, the shepherds from western Eu-
rope would consume, besides dairy products, pro-
duce, meat, and sometimes wine; moreover, they
would pay great attention to the cooking process,
which couldn’t be further from the truth in case of
the local ones (Morariu, 1942, 386–388).
5 Regarding the prices, in 1934, for the food pur-
chased by a peasant family from the village of
Ciorna, Rezina, Orhei County, see Gheorghe Zane
(1938, 555), who published the findings of a mono-
graphic enquiry carried out by the Seminar of Polit-
ical Economy from the University of Iași.
6 Dimitrie Gusti is the author of the first Roma-
nian system of scientific sociology. He is also the
creator of sociological university education in
Romania. In 1910, Professor Gusti inaugurated the
Sociologie Românească, volumul XIV, Nr. 1, 2016, pp. 7–22 19
first constant and systematic sociology course at
the University of Iași (Herseni, 1940, 95–96). The
debut of Professor Gusti’s academic activity
equates with the beginnings of the sociology de-
partment tradition in Romania, represented by uni-
versity teaching staff specialized in this scientific
discipline. At the Sociological School of Bucharest,
Professor Gusti’s main collaborators were his uni-
versity assistants: Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa,
Mircea Vulcănescu, Henri H. Stahl, Traian Herseni
and Anton Golopenția (Herseni, 1940, 107–108).
7 Some of the professional organizations that
Professor Gusti established and chaired, in interwar
Romania, are: The Association for Study and Social
Reform (1918–1921), The Romanian Social Insti-
tute (1921–1938, 1944–1948), The Social Research
Institute of Romania (1938–1939), The Institute of
Social Sciences of Romania (1939–1944), The Na-
tional Council of Scientific Research (1944–1948)
[established at the Romanian Academy, during the
time Professor Dimitrie Gusti held the rank of Pres-
ident of the Romanian Academy (1944–1946)].
8 Tiberiu Ionescu (1937, 451), for instance, re-
searched pellagra and the etiological complex of this
condition. He also compiled a database documenting
the annual average food rations, the caloric intake of
peasant meals or the household expenses allocated to
food by the rural population in the interwar period.
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Annex 1:
Professor Dimitrie Gusti, in his quality of
chairman of the Census Commission, recom-
mends Mr. Sabin Manuilă to the Minister of La-
bor, Health and Social Assistance, on Decem-
ber 12, 1929, to be appointed director of the
School of Statistics. It is the official document
leading to the birth of the Central Institute of
Statistics in Romania [source: National Archi-
ves of Romania, Sabin Manuilă Personal Fond
(1853–1947), inventory no. 614, d. I.256, f. 11].
