La ayuda humanitaria de los British Quakers durante la Guerra Civil española (1936-1939): el caso del Hospital Infantil de Polop de la Marina (Alicante) / Humanitarian aid from the British Quakers during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): the case of the Children's Hospital of Polop de la Marina (Alicante)

Debido a su condición geoestratégica de retaguardia durante la Guerra Civil española, el País Valenciano se convirtió en una de las zonas republicanas que acogieron mayor número de refugiados, entre ellos muchos niños. El Estado republicano se mostró del todo incapaz de afrontar los retos derivados de esta crisis demográfica y sanitaria e hizo un llamamiento en busca de ayuda. Una de las primeras agencias humanitarias transnacionales en responder fue la Religious Society of Friends del Reino Unido, más conocidos como el Friends Service Committee o simplemente los Quakers, una comunidad religiosa disidente fundada en Inglaterra en el siglo XVII. Durante la Guerra Civil, los cuáqueros impulsaron numerosas iniciativas de carácter humanitario en los dos bandos enfrentados, habilitando colonias agrícolas, talleres, cantinas y hospitales. Este trabajo analiza en profundidad el hospital infantil que los Quakers habilitaron en Alicante en septiembre de 1937 y que posteriormente fue trasladado al municipio de Polop de la Marina. Nos centraremos en aspectos tales como la ubicación y administración del centro sanitario, el tipo de pacientes que allí se atendieron, el personal sanitario que allí trabajó, la evolución del hospital a lo largo de la guerra y su recorrido tras la victoria franquista, así como la motivación que impulsó a los voluntarios británicos a promover ese proyecto y a llevarlo a cabo. Asimismo, reconstruiremos la figura y la trayectoria de Manuel Blanc Rodríguez (1899-1971), un pediatra desconocido por la historiografía, que asumió la dirección de ese hospital británico

During the Spanish Civil War, the Valencian Country became one of the republican zones receiving greater number of refugees, due to its rearguard geostrategic condition. Among them there were many children. The Republican State was totally unable to face the challenges of this demographic and health crisis and appealed for help. The British Religious Society of Friends (also known as the Friends Service Committee or Quakers) was one of the first transnational humanitarian agencies to respond. They are a dissident religious community founded in England in the 17th century. During the Spanish Civil War, the Quakers encouraged many humanitarian initiatives on both sides in conflict, as agricultural colonies, workshops, canteens and hospitals. This paper analyzes in depth the children's hospital that the Quakers enabled in Alicante in September 1937, later transferred to the village of Polop de la Marina. We will focus on aspects such as the location and administration of the health center, the type of patients that were attended, the health personnel who worked, the evolution of the hospital throughout the war and what happened to it after the Francoist victory. We will also stress the motivation of the British volunteers to promote and carry out this project. Finally, we will reconstruct the career of Manuel Blanc Rodríguez (1899-1971), the pediatrician who assumed the management of that British hospital. His figure remains unknown by the historiographys

Panorama hospitalario de Zamora a mediados del siglo XVIII / Hospital Panorama in Zamora at the middle of the XVIIIth Century

El siglo XVIII fue un periodo de reformas en múltiples campos, también en el asistencial. Para avanzar en su estudio, el presente artículo profundiza en el conocimiento de la red hospitalaria a mediados de dicha centuria en los territorios que integran la actual provincia de Zamora. En este sentido, se analiza el tipo de establecimientos, su financiación, organización y funcionamiento. Como resultado, se nos dibuja un panorama salpicado de numerosos albergues rurales y algunos hospitales de curación en núcleos de cierta entidad urbana, consagrados, fundamentalmente, al acogimiento y atención religiosa de pobres transeúntes. Tales establecimientos se nutrían, sobre todo, de rentas agrarias y del producto de censos. Contaban, además, con una notable presencia eclesiástica (AU)

The XVIIIth century was an era of reforms in multiple fields, including healthcare. To advance in its study, the present article delves into the knowledge about the hospital network in the middle of said century within the territories which integrate the current province of Zamora. Accordingly, the type of establishment, its funding, organisation and operation are analysed. As a result, a panorama dotted with numerous rual refuge sand some hospitals in the centre of certain built-up areas is drawn, dedicated, basically, to the reception and religious assistance of poor vagrants, Scuh establishments were funded, above all, by agricultural income and by census rents. They counted, moreover, on a notable, ecclesiastic presence (AU)

[The institutional care for incurable and dying patients in Bamberg around 1800]. / Die medizinische Versorgung Unheilbarer und Sterbender in Bamberg um 1800.

Opened in 1789, the Bamberg General Hospital has often been described as a mile stone on the road from the traditional hospital into an institution for the exclusive care of curable diseases. As this paper shows, however, the shift was much less clear-cut. Early plans for the hospital also envisaged several rooms for dying patients within the new building, and later its first medical director, Adalbert F. Marcus, explicitly demanded that also some incurable patients be admitted and assisted until their death. His demand was not heeded but eventually plans for a separate institution came up. In 1803, a nearby former seminary was turned into a hospital for incurables. This paper traces these developments and puts them into their context.

[The municipality hospital at Nuremberg after the end of reconstruction (1958-1994)]. / Vom Städtischen Krankenhaus zum modernen Grossklinikum. Das Städtische Krankenhaus Nürnberg: Vom Ende des Wiederaufbaus (1958) bis zur Eröffnung des Klinikums Süd (1994).

In 1897 the municipality of Nuremberg founded a large hospital in the northern part of the town. That hospital was partly destroyed by air-attacks in World War II but rebuilt rather quickly after 1945, and in 1958 it owned the same capacities, as far as hospital-beds were concerned, as before the war (1939). The older buildings of that hospital were modernized after 1960, and many new ones with much better facilities for the in-patients were added. After the war Nuremberg's population grew but slowly from 430,000 (1958) to roughly half a million after 1971. But people grew older, many spent some time in hospital. In the 1960s, the length of stay in this hospital was considerable, 25.8 days (1962) on the average. From then on it decreased to less than to days in the 1990s. The progress of medicine as an applied science was extraordinary in those decades, the therapies became more intensive--and more costly--, and many more doctors and nurses had to take care of more older and sicker patients. In 1994 a second big municipal hospital was founded, this time in the utmost south of Nuremberg. Some 1000 hospital beds were transferred from the old hospital in the north to the new one in the south and a little less than 1500 beds remained behind.

[Problems of modernization of historic hospitals]. / Probleme der Modernisierung historischer Krankenhäuser in Niederschlesien.

Adapting buildings and the technical infrastructure of hospitals to the requirements of modern technology, workflow and legal regulations is a difficult and costly process. A proper plan, taking into account the necessary changes, has a significant influence on the future functioning of the hospital. The assumptions and priorities of the project determine the quality of services provided in the future. The modernization process is more complicated when it concerns hospital complexes with a historic pedigree. Combining functionality, modernity and efficiency while retaining historical features is a difficult undertaking: Decisions must be made basing on a thorough analysis. Of the 70 hospitals in Lower Silesia, 23 are historic structures. The majority of them do not meet the demands of modern medical technology and workflow, or the requirements of the Ministry of Health. The subject of modernization of historic hospital facilities is a very important contemporary topic, but is subjected to very little research. The work presented is one phase of a larger study intending to develop model solutions for the optimization of design processes in the modernization of a historic hospital.

A política de reestruturação dos hospitais de ensino: notas preliminares sobre os seus impactos na micropolítica da organização hospitalar / Teaching hospitals reorganization policy: preliminary notes about its impacts on the hospital organization micropolitics

Iniciado em 2004, o Programa de Reestruturação dos Hospitais de Ensino é uma das principais estratégias para o enfrentamento da crise generalizada do setor hospitalar no âmbito do Sistema Único de Saúde, concebido por iniciativa do governo federal com participação de segmentos da sociedade civil organizada. Este artigo apresenta resultados preliminares de investigação em andamento, que tem como objetivo analisar o impacto dessa política governamental no cotidiano de instituições hospitalares de ensino, utilizando se, como referencial teórico, elementos da micropolítica das organizações de saúde, em particular a tensão entre as determinações externas e o forte protagonismo dos trabalhadores de saúde na configuração da vida organizacional. (AU)

Narratives of change and reform processes: global and local transactions in French psychiatric hospital reform after the Second World War.

As with the rest of biomedicine, psychiatry has, since the Second World War, developed under the strong influence of the transnational accumulation of a whole series of practices and knowledge. Anthropology has taught us to pay attention to the transactions between local-level actors and those operating at the global level in the construction of this new world of medicine. This article examines the role played by the recommendations of the WHO Expert Committee of Mental Health in the reform of the French mental health system during the 1950s. Rooted in the experience of practitioners and administrators participating in the process of reforming local psychiatric systems, the recommendations of the WHO Expert Committee developed a new vision of regulating psychiatry, based on professionalism and an idea of a normativity of the doctor-patient relation. This article shows how, by mobilizing the WHO reports' recommendations, French administrators and doctors succeeded in creating a typically French object: "the psychiatric sector", founded on elaborating a new mandate for the psychiatric profession. The article thus questions the deinstitutionalization model as an explanation of transformations of the structure of the French psychiatry system in the post-war period.

[Bavarian mental health reform 1851. An instrument of administrative modernization]. / Die bayerische Irrenreform von 1851. Ein Instrument der administrativen Modernisierung unter König Max II. von Bayern.

By 1850 the reformation of institutional psychiatric care in Bavaria was given the highest priority by monarchy and administration. Cooperating with experts, especially the psychiatrist Karl August von Solbrig, they provided for new asylums to be established throughout Bavaria in a surprisingly short period of time. It was, however, only at personal intervention of King Max II. that the administrative and financial difficulties which had existed since the beginning of the 19th century could be overcome. The planning of asylums done by each administrative district of Bavaria vividly reflects rivalry as well as cooperation between all governmental and professional agencies involved. Modernization of psychiatry was publicly justified by referring to scientism, the need for a more progressive restructuring of administration, and the paternalistic care of the monarchy, whereas, from an administrative point of view, aspects of psychiatric treatment, like what kind of asylum would be best, were rather insignificant. The structures established by means of the alliance between state administration and psychiatric care under the rule of King Max II. had a lasting effect on the further development of Bavaria.

From retreat to health centre: legislation, commercial opportunity and the repositioning of a Victorian private asylum.

This paper examines the interplay of commercial imperatives and health care legislation in the survival of a privately owned psychiatric hospital in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Using documentary and archival evidence, we show how the Homewood Retreat (later Sanitarium, and eventually Health Centre) was able to respond to and anticipate legislative developments through the agency of successive medical superintendents and the structural positioning of the institution as an inextricably integrated element in local and provincial mental health provision. Our case study is used to draw out wider lessons concerning agency, legislative context and treatment modality in the determination of organizational histories. We conclude by noting the important role of the private sector in ensuring the continued provision of an asylum form of mental health care.