This paper examines the relationship between the public image of Pedro Gonzólez 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 biography is transformed into an urban legend. Beyond the merely anecdotal, I show how the aesthetics associated with female corpses and artificial women organize cultural imaginaries, bringing together medical discourses and literary and artistic representations.

This article focuses on the public experience of science by studying the exhibition practice of a small popular anatomy museum. The owner, Gustav Zeiller, a little-known German model maker and entrepreneur, opened his private collection in Dresden in 1888 with the aim of providing experts and laymen alike with a scientific education on bodily matters and health care. The spatial configuration of his museum environment turned the wax models into didactic instruments. Relying on the possible connexion between material culture studies and history of the emotions, this article highlights how Zeiller choreographed the encounter between the museum objects and its visitors. I argue that the spatial set up of his museum objects entailed rhetorical choices that did not simply address the social utility of his museum. Moreover, it fulfilled the aim of modifying the emotional disposition of his intended spectatorship. I hope to show that studying the emotional responses toward artefacts can offer a fruitful approach to examine the public experience of medicine.

During the last decades of the 13th century, in the midst of the shaping and medicalization of the new Kingdom of Valencia, the authorities and citizens envisaged the role that physicians could have in clarifying violent deaths. The first circumstance that compelled judges to resort to physicians was the possible poisoning of an individual, given that they could contribute to elucidating the truth with their expert knowledge. They were even requested to use post-mortem dissection if necessary for this purpose. In reality, physicians were conscious of their limitations in this field and the need for them to act with caution.

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 and object. On the grounds of the work elaborated by the artist Lisa Temple-Cox and the critical look and comments made by the observer Harcourt, this paper is a first-hand attempt to understand the configuration of the self and the influence of the artistic intervention in the generation and representation of anatomical knowledge, resulting in an exploration into the intertwined processes that create both historical subjects and historical objects.

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, penicillin began to be distributed through the normal channels. An important role in its regulation was played by the official department responsible for controlling pharmaceutical and chemical products in Portugal, the Comissão Reguladora dos Produtos Químicos e Farmacêuticos (Regulatory Committee for Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products). Penicillin was imported as a raw material from 1947 and the first medicaments containing penicillin, prepared in Portugal, were released into the commercial circuit in 1948. A laboratory had been established in 1942 by the Comissão Reguladora for the analytical verification of medicaments and medicinal products with the aim of certifying their quality and minimizing the number of products with no attested therapeutic efficacy. The number of medicaments analysed by this laboratory increased substantially from 72 in the year of its foundation (1942) to 2478 in 1954, including, after 1948, medicaments containing penicillin. The aim of the present paper was to elucidate the role of the Comissão Reguladora dos Produtos Químicos e Farmacêuticos in regulating and controlling the distribution of penicillin in Portugal during the 1940s and 1950s.

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 between persons of the same sex, or contra natura. In his report, Moniz attempted to interpret distinctive elements of the life of the subject using sexological categories, illustrating the interaction between these categories and the changing forms adopted by homosexuality (or homosexual people) of the time.

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 psychiatry and displace its most influential figures. This article seeks to analyse the Conference's main organizational features and examine its most significant content, with the aim of evaluating its strategic importance in the context of both the psychiatrists' professional and scientific interests and their ideological and political concerns. Conference papers tackled issues such as neurology and psychiatry in wartime, vitamin deficiency and the nervous system, and new psychiatric treatments, including shock therapy. The Conference's marked ideological nature represented the beginning of a new professional dynamic, featuring the emergence or establishment of new leaders intent on laying the foundations of psychiatry during the early years of the Franco regime.

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 dictatorship, the hegemonic instrument for the transformation of Spanish society in an anti-modernizing way. Scientific activity was not excluded from these changes, and a Catholic science conveying universal values and in harmony with the faith was strongly encouraged. One example of this Catholic science was the psychiatric approach developed by Juan José López Ibor during the first Francoist period, including the concepts of anagogy, the perfection instinct, psychagogy and, above all, anxious thymopathy and life anguish. This paper analyses the Christian background of these notions, their scientific repercussions and their social utility for the dictatorship. This paper emphasizes the consideration of these key notions of Spanish psychiatry during the First Francoism as knowledge of salvation, i.e., as conveyors of assumed eternal values in accordance with the prevailing view of Catholicism. On the other hand, it points to the functioning of these concepts as a part of the regulatory network designed and deployed by Francoism to promote submission and resignation in the Spanish population.

In this paper, we study the ideological bases of mental hygiene, understood as racial and moral hygiene, during the first years of Franco's regime and their evolution until 1960. First, we discuss the conceptualization of mental hygiene in the 1940s and its role as a tool for the legitimization of dictatorship, revealing the involvement of orthodox Catholicism and its links with moral and racial hygiene. Second, we assess the transformation of mental hygiene during the 1950s towards modernization and a stronger linkage with the dominant trends of contemporary psychiatry without ever leaving the ideological background of Catholicism. For this purpose, we will focus on analysis of the activities of the Mental Hygiene Week held in Barcelona in 1954 and on the creation in 1955 of the National Board of Psychiatric Care, which took on mental hygiene as one of its functions. This paper shows the close relationship of mental hygiene during the early years of Francoism with the political principles of the Dictatorship. The 1940s witnessed the deployment of a harsh discourse in which mental hygiene was a tool for the (moral and spiritual) education of the Spanish people in the political principles of the "New State", pathologizing political dissent and ideologically purifying the country. In the 1950s, Francoist mental hygiene underwent a process of aggiornamento marked by international political events following the defeat of fascism in World War II, advancing a project for (authoritarian) modernization in an international context already directed towards mental health.

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 now proven mineral and medicinal qualities. The article discusses in detail Ricardo Jorge's business venture, framing it in the context of the economic collection and treatment potential of mineral waters and the revival of the phenomenon of hydrotherapy, legitimized by new developments in the chemical analysis of waters. The commercial failure to exploit the water resources highlights the difficulties of this project and the complexity of the professional practice of hydrological medicine, although it resulted in a strengthening of Ricardo's authority and prestige in the field of hydrotherapy.

Models made of wax had enormous diffusion in the anatomical teaching of the 18th century. It transcended the borders of a science that impregnated with scientific knowledge the artistic expression of beauty. Based on this premise, the San Carlos Royal College of Surgery created in Madrid a large collection of anatomical models, which is currently maintained by the Javier Puerta Anatomy Museum in the School of Medicine at Madrid Complutense University. The collection began in 1786 with Ignacio Lacaba, the first dissector of the Surgery College of Madrid, whose artistic sensibility and deep knowledge of anatomy contributed and facilitated harmonization between the work of the wax sculptors and language and anatomical expression.

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 time. An appropriation of the experiments by the Austrian Eugen Steinach began in 1920, with prominent figures such as the Italian professor Juan Noe Crevani and the young Chilean student Ottmar Wilhelm. Between 1922 and 1924, Wilhelm developed a series of experiments on dogs, bulls, pigs, rats and Welfare Board patients through the so-called Steinach operation, which consisted of the sectioning of the efferent channel in one of the testicles. Professor Noe's scientific patronage policy and Wilhelm's strategy of succession in the field led the latter to hold a chair in the new School of Medicine of Universidad de Concepci6n at the age of 25. From this position, the. figure of Wilhelm was fundamental for the development of a line of endocrinological research that was able to position Universidad de Concepci6n as a scientific development centre, which was strengthened by the arrival of another disciple of Steinach in Chile, the Latvian professor Alejandro Lipschütz.

This study addresses the explicit and implicit exclusion mechanisms that limited the access of women to internships in Paris hospitals during the last decades of the 19th century through examination of the documentation generated in the admission process and the texts of female physicians who supported their access. In response to the applications of female medical students to register for the admission tests, the Conseil de Surveillance de l'Assistance Publique delayed their entry for some years until their registration was finally permitted. However, their inclusion in the institution did not produce integration because of the multiple dimensions of the exclusion mechanisms.

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 Vida y hechos de Estebanillo González (1646) offers knowledge on three different aspects of the medical world in Europe during the Thirty Years' War: Estebanillo practises various medical professions, appears in the story as a patient and comments on health practices and disease, providing highly useful material to analyze how different fields of medicine are represented in this literary work.

This article discusses the early postwar history of international engagement with the strengthening of health services by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Standard narratives emphasise that the WHO prioritised vertical programmes against specific diseases rather than local capacity-building, at least until the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978 launched a policy focus on primary health care. There was, however, a longer lineage of advisory work with member states, and our aim is to examine this intellectual and policy history of health services planning and administration. We begin by surveying the relevant secondary literature, noting that this theme appears only briefly in the institution's first official histories, with minimal contextualisation and analysis. We then proceed chronologically, identifying an early phase in the 1950s when, despite its marginalisation at the WHO, the interwar European social medicine tradition kept alive its ideals in work on health planning. However, the sensitivities of the USA and of the colonial powers meant that consideration of social security, health rights and universal coverage was absent from this discussion. Instead it was initially concerned with propounding Western models of organisation and administration, before switching to a focus on planning techniques as an aspect of statecraft. In the 1960s such practices became incorporated into economic development plans, aligning health needs with infrastructure and labour force requirements. However, these efforts were entangled with Western soft power, and proved unsuccessful in the field because they neglected issues of financing and capacity. In the 1970s the earlier planning efforts gave rise to a systems analysis approach. Though in some respects novel, this too provided a neutral, apolitical terrain in which health policy could be discussed, void of issues of rights and redistribution. Yet it too foundered in real-world settings for which its technocratic models could not account.