Articles Volume 26 (2006)
Medicina i astrologia en el corpus arnaldià
SEBASTIÀ GIRALT
Summary
1.—Astrology in the works of Arnau de Vilanova. 2.—The astrological seals. 3.—Writings on seals. 4.—Jewish circles. 5.- Authorship of De Iudicis Astonomi. 6.—A time for astrology?Abstract
The role of astrology in Arnau de Vilanova’s medical work is revisited with special attention to the problems of authorship posed by the astrological writings of Arnau’s corpus and to their hypothetical chronology.
Abortion in the Castilian medical literature of the 16th century
PALOMA MORAL DE CALATRAVA
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—Clinical causes of abortion: mole and climate. 3.—The social causes of abortion. 4.—Conclusion.
Abstract
This article analyzes the causes of abortion according to the medical and surgical literature that circulated in Castilian in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These works not only explain the medical causes of the death of foetuses but also show how female health was discriminated against and how doctors were able to produce an incipient causal theory in accordance with the medical and social problems of their time.
Simón de Tovar (1528-1596): family networks, American nature and trade in curiosities in 16th century Seville
MIGUEL LÓPEZ PÉREZ Y MAR REY BUENO
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—Portuguese physician in Andalusian lands. 3.—A woman, a friend and various businesses. 3.1.—Family mercantile networks. 3.2.—The Hispalense circle of Arias Montano. 4.—Scientific interests. 4.1.—Therapeutics. 5.—Seville, port of the Indies. 5.1.—American plants in Seville gardens. Abstract
The central character of this work is Simón de Tovar, a citizen of late 16th century Seville, who was an outstanding collector of American plants. Beyond the traditional historiography of early modern Spanish botany, Tovar’s activities have been set in the context of an expanding trade in marvels and curiosities.
At the centre of all gazes: an approach to the historiography of phrenology
DAVID NOFRÉ I MATEO
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—A new science of the mind. 3.—An incursion into the margins of science: selection of the objective. 4.—Popular science or bourgeois science? 5.—The plural character of the new science. 6.—«Physiologie de cerveau» vs. Phrenology. 7.—Plurality of readings or political neutrality? 8.— On the other side of the Channel: French phrenology. 9.—A science at the service of personal authority. 10.—Epilogue.
Abstract
Since the late 19th century, phrenology has been regarded at best as a pseudo-science popularised by quacks. During the 1970s, representatives of the new social history of science and medicine chose it as their favourite target for the in-depth construction of scientific orthodoxy. Since then, different approaches to phrenology have helped to change a 19th century view focused on the emergence of science as a profession and on the new technical nature of medicine. In this paper, I analyse the different contributions to the study of phrenology in Great Britain and France over the past three decades and point out some aspects that should receive more attention in future research.
Romantic Magnetism: The patient. The woman. The republic
LUÍS MONTIEL
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—The patient in the framework of animal magnetism. 3.—Emergence of the feminine in the reporting of cases. 4.—Animal magnetism and the new political order. 5.—Final reflection. Abstract
This paper, based on case studies, aims to present some aspects of the animal magnetism that developed in the Germany of the first decades of the nineteenth century. These aspects constitute, or at least imply, important innovations within the framework of contemporary medical practice and consist of: the recognition of the importance of the words of patients and their own knowledge of their bodies; the emergence of the figure of woman as an independent and singular subject in which the aspects indicated above are emphasized; and, finally, the latent potential of this medical theory for reform within the framework of policy.
The Unión Médica Hispano-Americana (1900) and its contribution to scientific Hispanoamericanism
GUILLERMO OLAGÜE DE ROS
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—Gestation of the Unión Médica Hispano-Americana (1900). 3.—The constituent congress in Madrid in May 1903. 4.—Manuel Tolosa Latour (1857-1919) and the Diccionario Tecnológico Médico Hispano-Americano. 5.—The failure of a project.
Abstract
The Unión Médica Hispano-Americana was founded during the XIII International Congress of Medicine of Paris in 1900. Its main aim was to strengthen the cultural and scientific ties among Spanish speaking countries. The first assembly of the Union took place in Madrid in the Spring of 1903. The most interesting paper presented was undoubtedly that of Manuel Latosa Latour. He suggested creating a Diccionario Tecnológico Médico Hispano-Americano. The scientific Society had no continuity and neither did the dictionary. The reasons for this failure must be seen in the absence of economic support by political authorities in Spain and America, the organizational weakness of the Union and the poverty of its action program, which was imbued with a triumphalist rhetoric, empty of content and highly paternalistic in its relations with the American world.
The medical and pharmaceutical profession and the mutual care system in the writings of Jaime Vera (1859-1918)
PILAR LEÓN SANZ
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—A socialist physician, Jaime Vera López. 3.—Socialist ideas according to Vera. 3.1.—The professional, intellectual worker. 4.— Pharmacy in the setting of workers’ mutualism. 4.1.—Mutual societies as a medical assistance system. 4.2.—The new pharmacist. 4.3.—Industrialization of pharmacy and limits of the alliance with capital. 5.—Physicians and medical care. 6.—Conclusions.
Abstract
This article presents the perspectives of the physician and politician Jaime Vera y López (1859-1918), co-founder of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, on the medical profession, medical practice, and healthcare systems. It compares the Report (Informe) that he presented to the Comisión de Reformas Sociales (1884) with his later writings published in the socialist press («Farmacia y cooperación obrera», 1914 and «La locura en los niños. Camino del remedio», 1916). We observe the discrepancies between the political-programme documents and the articles centring on professional questions and highlight how his theoretical focus is modified when applied to matters of medical practice.
Towards a new social perception of people with disabilities: legislation, medicine and the work-disabled in Spain (1900-1936)
JOSÉ MARTÍNEZ PÉREZ Y MARÍA ISABEL PORRAS GALLO
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—The last years of the 19th century. 3.—Consequences of the 1900 Work Accident Law. 4.—1922 Work Accident Law and the Institute for Professional Re-education of the Work-Disabled. 5.—Consequences of the 1922 Work Accident Law for people with disabilities. 6.—The 1932 Work Accident Law and the new historical situation. 7.—By way of conclusion.
Abstract
This paper aims to analyse the role played by Medicine, against a background of social reform in the first third of the 20th Century, in helping to shape the nature of disabilities in Spain. We look at the legislation passed to regulate occupational accidents and the institutions set up to look after accident victims with physical or functional disabilities from the perspective developed in the new academic field of disability studies and using scientific and professional journals as well as documentation from Spain´s legislative chambers as our main sources. We attempt to examine the extent to which these developments helped to transform the existing social perception of people with disabilities.
«A Century of Civilization under the Influence of Eugenics»: Dr. Enrique Diego Madrazo, socialism and scientific progress
RICHARD CLEMINSON
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—The ideas of Dr. Madrazo: pedagogy, social medicine and eugenics. 3.— «Un siglo de civilización bajo la influencia eugenésica» (1930). 4.—Five times twenty years makes for a century of eugenics. 5.—Conclusion.
Abstract
This article discusses the thought of one of the pioneers of eugenics in Spain, Dr. Enrique Diego Madrazo. In particular, it analyses his 1930 essay Un siglo de civilización bajo la influencia eugenésica [A Century of Civilization under the Influence of Eugenics], as the most explicit work on the eugenic utopia he advocated. This work, because of its breadth, was also one of the most extensive and detailed accounts of the steps to be taken towards the eugenic society that was produced. The present analysis of his work assesses the degree to which his thought, which has been described as «utopian socialist», in fact corresponded to that epithet, given the politically authoritarian nature and the gender bias of some aspects of his one-hundred year plan for the creation of a eugenic society. The article also places Madrazo’s thought in the context of his time and other national currents of eugenic thought.
«Two professions for a single task». The introduction of chemical engineering in Spain during the first Francoism.
ÁNGEL TOCA
Summary
1.—New disciplines for the chemical industry. 2.—Training of professionals in Spain before the civil war. 3.—Spanish chemists at the end of the civil war. 4.—Different niches for a single profession: Chemical Engineering during the first Francoism. 4.2—Calvet chair at Barcelona University. 5.—By way of conclusion.
Abstract
Through the first half of the 20th century, Chemical Engineering was established as an academic option in the training of specialists for the North-American and European chemical industry, whereas it was not a special field of study in Spain until the 1990s. The reason for this delay was a battle of interests between chemist and industrial engineers to control this career during the first Francoism. This article will try to show the development and professionalization of specialists for the Spanish chemical industry.
Reconstructing data: Evidence-Based Medicine and Evidence-Based Public Health in context
NADAV DAVIDOVICH AND DANI FILC
Summary
1.—Introduction. 2.—Definitions. 3.—Historical roots. 4.—Statistics as science: is there an alternative to positivism? 5.—EBPH and the neo-liberal reduction of the public sphere. 6.–Evidence-Based Medicine and Public Health as an answer to deprofessionalization. 7.—Conclusion: Evidence-Based Public Health as an expression of neo-liberal governmentality.
Abstract
The emergence of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) as the gold-standard practice in biomedicine and public health practices represents a significant epistemological turn in modern medicine. The development of Evidence-Based Public Health (EBPH) followed the emergence of Evidence-Based Medicine, as an attempt to ground health policies and interventions on «sound facts». The present paper analyzes the historical and sociological roots of this turn. We evaluate the ethical and social consequences of this transformation, both within the medical profession (the polarization between a medical elite which strengthened its professional status, and a rank and file which experienced a process of «de-professionalization») and in its relationship to the welfare state (the link between the medical elite, EBM, EBPH and the commodification of health care and public health).