Het leven in de weegschaal. Ideeën over mens en gezondheid in de verzekeringsgeneeskundige praktijk van moderne levensverzekeringen tussen 1880-1920.

Abstract

This paper examines the idea that quantitative data offer an objective and neutral depiction of reality, particularly the human body. The idea is that by collecting data we can find correlations and make predictions about the body. Nowadays, the use of Big Data promises insurance companies better prognosis of risk. This thesis sets out to historicize, analyse and problematize this phenomenon by examining the practice of insurance medicine in the Netherlands from 1880-1920. It is found that near the end of the nineteenth century, with the rise of actuarial science, life-insurance companies started using quantitative data to make risk assessments. An important part of this risk assessment was the medical examination of candidate. A new discipline of insurance medicine developed as a field of study in which rationality and objectivity were key. To accomplish this doctors used a number of medical techniques – like statistics and examination forms – to determine if someone was healthy or not. Using corpulence as a case study this thesis shows that the formulas and height and weight tables developed by the insurance industry are not neutral or objective. Health is not a pre-discursive entity, it is – to a certain extent - constructed in social, cultural and medical practice. It determines what we perceive to be a healthy body. The standards to assess someone's health became recommended guidelines for a healthy body weight and an instrument to practice social regulation.