This article studies a scientific controversy on the chemical analysis of Carratraca Spa water and discusses the shaping of the scientific authority of two mid-19th century Spanish experts in mineral waters: Antonio Casares, professor of chemistry at the University of Santiago, and Jose Salgado, medical director of the Spa. It considers the resources employed by the two experts...
Although Antoni de Martí i Franquès spent most of his life in small towns far from scientific institutions, he was not an isolated genius. In fact, he was an active contributor to the Academies in Barcelona, to which he presented five scientific reports, and he collaborated with the most prominent scientists in the city and maintained correspondence with many others. He was...
From the late 19th century, some of the physicians settled in Algeria and teachers at the School of Medicine of Algiers sought to map the extent of malaria in order to propose prophylactic measures against a disease that was widespread in the countryside of the colony. When the fight against malaria was organized in Algeria at the beginning of the 20th century, under the joint...
At the beginning of the 20th century, the noted Nobel prize-winning Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz made an expert analysis on homosexuality in a marriage annulment case of major value as an example of the effective application of sexological knowledge of that period. Contemporary republican legislation established marriage annulment in medical terms and punished relations...
Rejuvenation was a chapter of critical importance for the worldwide development of endocrinology in the 1920s. This work explores the acceptance of these techniques in Chile. Starting in the late 19th century, the Chilean Medical Journal (Revista Médica de Chile) incorporated references to experiments with endocrine gland preparations that were being conducted in Europe at the...
In order to know about diseases and their medical treatment from the perspective of the patient in Baroque Spanish society, creative literature, especially the picaresque novel, is a valuable source that offers a representation of ideas on medicine and disease that were widespread among the population and difficult to access from other sources. The first-person narrative in the...
Why should an artist look to anatomical or pathological specimens as a reservoir of images with which to facilitate an articulation of his or her own artistic or personal identity? This is the starting point of a reflection on the disappearance of the artist and its transformation into a passive object. As a result, it is also a reflection into the blurring lines between subject...
This paper examines the relationship between the public image of Pedro González de Velasco (1815-1882), famous for his anatomical collections and his Anthropological Museum, founded in 1875 in Madrid, and the popular legend related to the death, embalming and exhumation of his daughter Concepción. The doctor who is committed to the nation becomes a mad scientist, and his official...
Typhus fever appeared as an epidemic in the post-Civil War years and was responsible for a specific scientific initiative within the newly reconstructed National Institute and School of Public Health. It counted on significant international participation, from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Pasteur Institute, and it turned Spain into a crossroads for the exchange of theories...
This article aims to provide an overall quantification of the purge of research staff of the Board for Advanced Studies and Scientific Research (JAE) conducted by the Franco Regime. To this end, the names of prewar researcher Contents staff were gathered from JAE payrolls immediately before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and information on their employment in the postwar...
José M. Melià Bernabéu, also known as «Pygmalion», was a Valencian author famed for his work on the popularization of science, particularly astronomy. Pigmalión was convinced of the importance of education and of the social task that the study and observation of the heavens could fulfil. He therefore devoted himself to intense activity designed to popularize scientific knowledge...
This article depicts a tour through the history of the process that constructed the professional character of the Chilean social service, starting in 1925 with the establishment of the first educational institution. This tour, inseparably linked to the development of the Chilean public health system, proceeds under the auspices of the institutional framework of the health system...
This article identifies and describes historical processes that contributed, along with academic training, to the professionalization of nursing between the 1930s and 1950s in Chile, moving away from the association of this activity with domestic service. Based on medical documentary sources such as monographs and journals, the article examines public debates on: the links...
The aim of this paper was to highlight the role played by newspapers and other press media in the opposition to the consolidation of the medical profession in Buenos Aires in the 1890s. This investigation is based on the hypothesis that journalism was essential both for the accomplishment of the physicians' health project and for the fight of those who were against it. Newspaper...
Portugal did not participate in World War II but was one of the first countries in the world to receive penicillin for civilian use. The Portuguese Red Cross began to import the antibiotic from the United States of America in 1944 and appointed a controlling committee to oversee its distribution, due to the small amount available. In 1945, as world production increased...
Between 1886 and 1893, the doctor and hygienist Ricardo Jorge was linked to a commercial and medical project on the waters of Gerês. Known for many centuries and used for therapeutic purposes, they were administered on an empirical basis. When new chemical analyses were first published, the empirical properties of these waters took on a new role in hydrotherapy based on their...
This article is a case study of the scientific discussions on the birth of a zoological species that eventually came to be known as Arctocephalus philippii (Peters, 1866). It also examines the movement of the remains of a sea lion specimen from Chile to Germany and the discussions that arose in regard to its taxonomic definition. The paper argues that the material properties of...
After World War II came to an end, General Franco's regime attempted to step aside from the defeated fascist states by emphasizing its Catholic character. The change of image culminated in 1947 with the establishment of Spain as a Catholic State by means of the Law of Succession. This process generated the national catholic ideology, which became, during the first decades of the...
While there has been some research into Francoist psychiatry, much work still needs to be done on the reorganization of the mental health profession within the new state. Held in Barcelona on 12, 13 and 14th January 1942, the National Neurology and Psychiatry Conference undoubtedly played a major role in the attempt to overthrow the dominant ideas in the field of Spanish...