The military health service in the process of modernization, bureaucratization and professionalization of the Argentine Army (1888-1938)

Abstract

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a process of modernization, bureaucratization and professionalization of the Argentine Army was initiated. As a result of this process, Army divisions were formed, which are autonomous military organizations composed of units of various weapons, combat support elements and services. Included among the latter was the military health service, which acted both in the operational units of the military districts in order to incorporate citizens into the Compulsory Military Service as well as in military hospitals. This article aims to: 1) characterize this process in relation to the concepts of defense, organization, functions and territorial deployment of the Army; 2) analyze, within that framework, the formation of the military health service between 1888 -when the Organic Law of the Sanitary Corp of the Army and the Navy was sanctioned - and 1938 - when the Army's organic design was changed on the eve of the Second World War.