Dispositives of the psychiatric attendance in the contemporary Spain between the 19th and the 20th centuries

Abstract

The innovator tendencies of the psychiatric attendance in Spain, differentiated from or complementary of the traditional tendency focused on the mental hospital, only start to be manifest at the end of the first third of our century, but with a notable delay with regard to that happening in other European and American countries. The legislative development in the nineteenth century, faithful reflection of the social and political insensitivity in the epoch, had not known how to syntonize with the real needs in this matter. The relative political tranquily and ideological liberalization which characterizes the Alphonsine Restoration time opened a new scientific period in wich psychiatry achieved a notable development but attendance did not. It continued virtually relegated to ostracism by the State. Beyond the «specialization system», the institutional practice of Spanish psychiatry in the period between the 19th and the 20th centuries recordé in spite of the greater demand of psychiatric service of short hospitalizations and social welfare clinic was created.