The idea of care takes on concrete form through a friendly attitude, word, or gesture. Yet those who put the idea into practice appear to be driven, over the course of history, by a variety of ideas. Their name, status, and role are not always described precisely, but their interventions are connected to moral and scientific demands, enriched by collective representations. First comes the noble welcome accorded to the poor, sick, wandering stranger, as recounted by Homer and the Bible. There then develops a professional organization, protected to a greater or lesser extent in the name of the Greek, and then Roman, city. The image of the suffering Christ then takes precedence, in which we can read the distress of the unwell; this constituted the driving force of Christian charity, whose manifestations multiply over the Middle Ages. But the need for precautions in the face of numerous epidemics, accentuated by growing opportunities for war and travel, leads to the gradual establishment of an increasingly complex institutional organization, one linked to technical and political considerations. More precisely, in the last two centuries, social unrest which expressed a desire for public health and personal security underlay Republican ideals of liberty, solidarity, and individual expression. It is from this that there arise the modern duties of carers—officially recognized as “health professionals”—to guarantee the proper conditions for a sense of comfort, fulfillment, and esteem. Through the solicitude and the attention they provide, just as much as through their technical skills, carers participate in a practice of redistributing shared goods. Offering health and welcome to the most dispossessed through reflective intervention provides the beginnings of a politics of active citizenship.