History of medicine

The thirteenth entry is le mouvement hygiéniste, and the adjective that names it is a false friend with a dentist standing behind it. In French hygiéniste belongs to the nineteenth century and to public works: un médecin hygiéniste is a doctor of public health, and une doctrine hygiéniste is the body of ideas that had the sewers dug, the streets widened and the burial grounds moved out of town. The word describes a programme for a city, not a habit of cleanliness. « Hygienist » in English went somewhere far narrower. Outside a history book it now means one thing, « a dental hygienist », the person who scales your teeth, so « the hygienist movement » would be read as a trade association of them. The English name for the thing itself is « the sanitary movement », and the whole vocabulary follows that adjective rather than this one: « sanitary reform », « the sanitary idea », « the sanitary inspector », « the sanitary condition of the towns ». That is the word to reach for. « Hygienic », the other candidate, says only that something is clean.