Angel Luis González de Pablo

Sobre la configuración del modelo de pensamiento de la Higiene actual: el caso español

From an analysis of medical works on hygiene and the promotion of health from the start of the Modern Age until the present, using Spain as the main example, we attempt to describe the process of formation, and the current configuration, of the perceptual sphere of hygiene and public health. In different sections, we note how the promotion of health--initially from a moral standpoint, and later on the basis of medicine and hygiene, was intertwined with attempts to bring about forms of behavior appropriate to the socioeconomic needs of each historical period. This phenomenon was especially evident when processes of industrialization arose.

Psiquiatría en el primer franquismo: saberes y prácticas para un «Nuevo Estado»

Este dossier monografico nace con la idea de profundizar en el estudio de la psiquiatria durante el primer franquismo y resaltar algunos aspectos poco conocidos o ignorados por la historiografia.

Por la psicopatología hacia Dios: psiquiatría y saber de salvación durante el primer franquismo

After World War II came to an end, General Francos 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 Jose Lopez 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.

El Noventayocho y las nuevas instituciones científicas: la creación del Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas de Ramón y Cajal

The neglect of science was considered to be one of the causes of the 1898 crisis and therefore the production of science was regarded at the end of the last century as one of the principal measures to achieve national regeneration. The creation of research institutions, especially for outstanding researchers like Cajal, became a national goal. The press contributed greatly to bring about this goal, and in the case of Cajal, was not only the reporter but also the instigator of the campaign to provide him with his own research centre: the Biological Research Laboratory. This paper analyses the start, development and culmination of this campaign.