Esteban Rodríguez Ocaña

Ciencia y persuasión social en la medicalización de la infancia en España, siglos XIX-XX

The article explores how childhood visits to doctors first became routine in Spain. The introduction of new models of prenatal care, childbirth, and childrearing required the extension of academic medicine into a terrain traditionally occupied by practitioners of popular medicine. Focusing on the status quo for most of the population in the final third of the nineteenth century, the study examines the repercussion of the eras scientific outreach campaigns (expressions of harsh criticism of what popular culture had constructed) and the spread of free health assistance. In particular, it highlights how attention to the nutritional needs of nursing mothers helped these women gain familiarity with the medical assistance available in the case of illness - so much so that by the second half of the twentieth century, the issues of health education and promotion had been relegated to a secondary plane within the medical profession.

Profesionalización médica y campañas sanitarias en la España del siglo XX

In this study we analyze the confluence of two processes that characterized the medical profession in Spain during the first third of the twentieth century. Health campaigns provided a formula for strengthening the interests of the professional collective by defining the demand for specific medical services, and consolidating the institutionalization of new areas of medicine, thus justifying their existence on a scientific basis. In addition, these health campaigns, to a great extent, based their propositions on the reputation of the specialist. We analyze two historical cases: the fight against infant mortality and the fight against cancer; the contributions of these two campaigns to the opening of a market for new specialist services, the role of technology, and processes of negotiation with other branches of medicine to guarantee a monopoly in providing treatment are examined.

The social production of novelty : diphtheria serotherapy, «herald of the new medicine»

This issue of Dynamis presents a collection of articles on the beginnings of a biological treatment: diphtheria serotherapy. This therapy contributed to a decisive change in public and private behaviours towards cases of infectious/contagious disease. The phrase «herald of the new medicine», which appears in the title of this introduction, was used by the Spanish Health Council to describe the treatment of diphtheria by serum taken from the blood of immunised horses, i.e., the Behring-Roux method. This new therapy had been reported to the Council by Antonio Mendoza and Manuel Sanz on their return from official visits to Paris and Berlin in Autumn 1894. The description reflects the perception of novelty, of successful innovation generated by their report. Articles by Gabriel Gachelin and Jonathan Simon, respectively, offer a detailed analysis of the French side of the initial production of serum, while Axel Huntelmann tels the German side of the same story. Annick Opinel addresses the implications of the new therapy for hospital practice in her account of the construction of the Pasteur Hospital, which was designed to fight against diphtheria. This introduction aims to show the relevance of these papers to current historiography on the construction of one-cause-medicine, a powerful force in the shaping of health, disease and care in the present world. Diphtheria appeared in industrial countries between the mid-19th and mid20th centuries as an endemic disease with epidemic outbreaks at irregular intervals 1. It has become a fashionable subject of historical

Nota acerca del número y distribución de médicos y cirujanos en Andalucía, Murcia y Albacete en torno a 1835

Se presentan los resultados de un Censo de titulados medicos y cirujanos civiles, ordenado por la Real Junta Superior Gubernativa de Medicina y Cirugia en 1835, que se conservan en el Archivo de la Real Academia de Medicina de Granada, completados con otros datos similares procedentes del mismo distrito (las actuales provincias orientales de Andalucia, Albacete y Murcia) asi como otros, mas escasos, de Sevilla. Se concluye que no es oportuno el calculo de tasas para medir el nivel de equipamiento sanitario a partir de estas cifras, por incompletas, aunque la construccion de una ((piramide de fechas de titulacion)) permite suponer que dicho nivel habia disminuido respecto a epocas anteriores.Se presentan los resultados de un Censo de titulados medicos y cirujanos civiles, ordenado por la Real Junta Superior Gubernativa de Medicina y Cirugia en 1835, que se conservan en el Archivo de la Real Academia de Medicina de Granada, completados con otros datos similares procedentes del mismo distrito (las actuales provincias orientales de Andalucia, Albacete y Murcia) asi como otros, mas escasos, de Sevilla. Se concluye que no es oportuno el calculo de tasas para medir el nivel de equipamiento sanitario a partir de estas cifras, por incompletas, aunque la construccion de una ((piramide de fechas de titulacion)) permite suponer que dicho nivel habia disminuido respecto a epocas anteriores.

La labor estadística de Luis Comenge (1854-1916) en el instituto de Higiene Urbana de Barcelona

La figura de Luis Comenge Ferrer (1854-1916) es sobradamente conocida entre los historiadores médicos espaholes por su contribución a la disciplina, característica de un modelo de acercamiento positivista en nuestra historiografía. En este sentido su obra ha gozado de atención en las últimas décadas (1), mientras que estan aún por evaluar sus aportaciones como higienista, actividad a la que se dedicó profesionalmente desde su radicación en Barcelona en 1886.