Societies in the era of the right to health

The XXth century has seen the development of a new human right, the right t o health. The paper is a historical survey of the management of this new ri ght by contemporary societies. The medical profession ensured the mediation between the public health, and individual in state, increasingly involved in his quest for a better life. Following the transformation of medical pra ctices, on the one hand, the popularization of body knowledge and the devel opment of medica on the other, the individual emerges as the ultimate refer ence for a self-centered definition of health and witnesses a relative decl ine in the power of the medical profession.