PARENT-DUCHÂTELET, Alexandre-Jean-Baptiste, *On Prostitution in the City of Paris, Considered from the Perspectives of Public Health, Morality, and Administration*;

On Prostitution in the City of Paris, Considered from the Perspectives of Public Health, Morality, and Administration;

a work supported by statistical data drawn from the archives of the Prefecture of Police; with maps and tables. Brussels 1838. Société Encyclographique des Sciences Médicales. 4, 14th century, 358, tables, bound in a period-style cloth binding.
A monumental study of prostitution in Paris, compiled by the eminent French physician and hygienist Alexandre Parent-Duchâtelet. The author analyzes the phenomenon not only from the perspective of medicine and venereal diseases, but also in terms of social customs, living conditions, social background, age, traditions, economic circumstances, and administrative control of prostitution. In doing so, he draws on extensive statistical data and documentation from the Prefecture of Police.
Particularly valuable are the statistical tables and cartographic materials concerning the distribution of prostitution in Paris. The work also contains extensive chapters on brothels, police control, medical examinations, venereal diseases, hospitals, prisons, and methods of administrative regulation of prostitution.
Completed after nearly eight years of research, the work became the foundational study on the subject for decades and remains of great value to historians of social customs, medicine, criminology, and social life in 19th-century Paris. Stamps and inscriptions on the title page; traces of moisture and browning; scuffing on the binding. Rare.