Spanish Medicine Research Articles

Religious upbringing and current religiosity in Spanish nursing and medicine students

The influence of religious education in the family upon current spiritual and religious tendencies was assessed in a sample of 599 Spanish nurse and medicine students using a religiosity scale and answers to a series of belief/disbelief statements. Results showed that nursing and medicine students were equally low-religious, with no differences in religiosity total scores between participants coming from religious families; however, medical students coming from nonreligious families showed higher religiousness than the corresponding nursing trainees. This distinction appeared both across religiosity items and in a variety of responses to belief/disbelief of Christian/secular assertions. Regression analysis showed that religious family background was a consistent predictor of religious beliefs at young adulthood, and its influence was higher for medical students. In addition to establish religious upbringing as an important factor modulating enduring religiosity, these findings provide distinctions between nurse and medical trainees, and reproduce, in a Spanish mainly catholic sample, the structure of religiosity factors previously found on North American mainline protestants.

The use of the head louse as a remedy for jaundice in Spanish folk medicine: an overview

BackgroundIn Spain, head lice are considered a therapeutic resource for the treatment of jaundice. All folk remedies based on the ingestion of these insects meet in the present document, previously dispersed among a large number of references.MethodsAn overview of the Spanish literature has been carried out. The most important databases have been consulted. All related works have been examined.ResultsAlthough the method of preparation is diverse and the dose varies, the primary recommendation is a transference ritual consisting of taking nine live lice for nine days on an empty stomach without the patient’s knowledge. This traditional knowledge survives in Spanish society, and constitutes an example of the interrelation between Spanish and Latin American folk medicines.ConclusionsThe survival of this therapy in the worldview of certain rural communities suggests the need to take into account the beliefs, ideas and behaviour patterns of popular culture in relation to health and disease.

Knowledge of Their Own Allergic Sensitizations in Asthmatic Patients and Its Impact on the Level of Asthma Control

BackgroundAsthma guidelines recommend the adoption of allergen avoidance measures (AAM). To do so, patients need to know their own allergies. However, this degree of knowledge has not yet been assessed. The aims of this study were to determine, in allergic asthma patients: (i) the degree of knowledge of their own allergic sensitizations; (ii) the percentage of those who knew all their allergies and, in addition, adopted AAM against all of them, and (iii) the possible impact of this degree of knowledge on the level of asthma control. Patients and methodsDescriptive, prospective and multicentre study, including 147 patients from 9 Respiratory Medicine outpatient clinics. After confirming the previous allergic asthma diagnosis, a questionnaire was completed. It included asthma control and severity levels, results of previous allergy tests, and the description and number of allergic sensitizations known by the patients and AAM followed. ResultsOnly 72 (49%) patients knew all their allergic sensitizations and only 48 (33%) were also following AAM against all the allergens to which they were allergic. No relationship was established between the degree of knowledge of their own allergies and the level of asthma control (P=.544). ConclusionsOverall knowledge about the allergic nature of their disease among asthmatic patients attending Spanish Respiratory Medicine Departments is inadequate. Furthermore, a higher degree of knowledge of their allergies does not seem to lead, by itself, to better asthma control. Both findings seem to question the effectiveness of current educational strategies in this field and consequently, and they should be revised.

Grado de conocimiento de las propias sensibilizaciones alérgicas en pacientes asmáticos y su repercusión en el nivel de control del asma

BackgroundAsthma guidelines recommend the adoption of allergen avoidance measures (AAM). To do so, patients need to know their own allergies. However, this degree of knowledge has not yet been assessed. The aims of this study were to determine, in allergic asthma patients: i)the degree of knowledge of their own allergic sensitizations; ii)the percentage of those who knew all their allergies and, in addition, adopted AAM against all of them, and iii)the possible impact of this degree of knowledge on the level of asthma control. Patients and methodsDescriptive, prospective and multicentre study, including 147patients from 9 Respiratory Medicine outpatient clinics. After confirming the previous allergic asthma diagnosis, a questionnaire was completed. It included asthma control and severity levels, results of previous allergy tests, and the description and number of allergic sensitizations known by the patients and AAM followed. ResultsOnly 72 (49%) patients knew all their allergic sensitizations and only 48 (33%) were also following AAM against all the allergens to which they were allergic. No relationship was established between the degree of knowledge of their own allergies and the level of asthma control (P=.544). ConclusionsOverall knowledge about the allergic nature of their disease among asthmatic patients attending Spanish Respiratory Medicine Departments is inadequate. Furthermore, a higher degree of knowledge of their allergies does not seem to lead, by itself, to better asthma control. Both findings seem to question the effectiveness of current educational strategies in this field and consequently, they should be revised.

SEMICYUC 2012. Recommendations for intensive care management of acute pancreatitis

Abstract Objective Significant changes in the management of acute pancreatitis have taken place since the 2004 Pamplona Consensus Conference. The objective of this conference has been the revision and updating of the Conference recommendations, in order to unify the integral management of potentially severe acute pancreatitis in an ICU. Participants Spanish and international intensive medicine physicians, radiologists, surgeons, gastroenterologists, emergency care physicians and other physicians involved in the treatment of acute pancreatitis. Levels of evidence and grades of recommendation The GRADE method has been used for drawing them up. Drawing up the recommendations The selection of the committee members was performed by means of a public announcement. The bibliography has been revised from 2004 to the present day and 16 blocks of questions on acute pancreatitis in an ICU have been drawn up. Firstly, all the questions according to groups have been drawn up in order to prepare one document. This document has been debated and agreed upon by computer at the SEMICYUC Congress and lastly at the Consensus Conference which was held with the sole objective of drawing up these recommendations. Conclusions Eighty-two recommendations for acute pancreatitis management in an ICU have been presented. Of these 84 recommendations, we would emphasize the new determinants-based classification of acute pancreatitis severity, new surgical techniques and nutritional recommendations. Note. This summary only lists the 84 recommendations of the 16 questions blocks except blocks greater relevance and impact of its novelty or because they modify the current management. The full document, in Spanish and English, references, tables and list of authors is available on-line (additional material): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.medin.2013.01.007 ).

Medication errors detected in elderly patients admitted to an internal medicine service

The aim of the work was to analyse the outpatient medication errors detected on admission in senior patients in a Spanish general internal medicine service. We carried out a retrospective cohort study based on a review of the admission reports of consecutive, non-selected, patients aged ≥ 65 years. Eight hundred and sixty admission reports (cases) were analysed. Overall, we detected 218 errors in 173 (20.1%) of them. 'Wrong drug' errors were found in 165 occasions (75.7% of the 218 detected errors), being the most frequent among these 'not indicated/inappropriate drug for the diagnosis' (61 cases, 28.0%), followed by 'not indicated/inappropriate drug for the patient's condition' (55 cases, 25.2%). The binary logistic regression analysis showed association (p<0.05) between medication errors and sex (female) (OR 0.53, 95%, CI 0.37-0.76), cognitive impairment (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.38-0.85), length of hospital stay (OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.00-1.11), number of diagnoses (OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.85-0.98), number of medicines at admission (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.13-1.28) and lack of a recent previous admission in an internal medicine department (OR 2.07, 95% CI 1.14-3.74). Although previous studies are not completely comparable, the incidence of errors found at admission in our study is low. We stress the relevance of the reconciliation of treatment in elderly people (where internists may play an important role, from their perspective of a comprehensive patient's care) and integrated procedures for medication prescription and dispensation.

Aspectos de la neología en el Siglo de Oro: Lengua general y lenguajes especializados (review)

Reviewed by: Aspectos de la neología en el Siglo de Oro: Lengua general y lenguajes especializados Regina Morin Verdonk, Robert, and María Jesús Mancho Duque, eds. Aspectos de la neología en el Siglo de Oro: Lengua general y lenguajes especializados. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010. Pp. 349. ISBN 978-90-420-3117-3. Aspectos de la neología en el Siglo de Oro: Lengua general y lenguajes especializados is a collection of high-quality scholarly articles written in Spanish and presented in two parts. The introduction (7–20) provides a thorough discussion of how neologisms enter into a language, either through language-internal morphological, semantic, and syntactic mechanisms, or through linguistic borrowing. It also carefully discusses the content of each article. The volume as a whole is extremely well documented, and contains at the end an extensive bibliography (273–330) and an index of terms (331–49). The eight contributions in the first part, “Neología en los tecnolectos del Siglo de Oro,” examine neology and obsolescence in the specialized language of sixteenth- to seventeenth-century Spanish naval affairs, medicine, astronomy and cosmography, jurisprudence, finance, navigation, mathematics, and economics. Most approach their subject matter in a similar fashion, examining a variety of Golden Age texts and analyzing attestations of word-level neology, resulting either from derivational and compositional morphological processes, or from lexical borrowing and subsequent adaptation. Two essays take a somewhat different approach. Gómez de Enterría (93–109) examines the lexical innovations of a single writer, José de la Vega, in his treatise on the buying and selling of stocks in seventeenth-century Europe, and Quirós García (149–67) focuses on the creation of syntagmatic combinations (sintagmación) or lexical chunks, rather than on word-level neology in sixteenth-century economics treatises. The second part, “Neología en la lengua general del Siglo de Oro,” contains five contributions that examine neology in the general language of the period. Anula (171–96) applies the criterion of frequency of use rather than first attestation to examine the creation, from 1474 to 1700, of words ending in –ada and –azo that denote types of blows (golpe). Clavería Nadal (197–212) discusses the neologisms and related commentary appearing in the 1611 Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española by Covarrubias. Colón Domènech (213–37) compares a portion of Nebrija’s 1493 Diccionario latino–español with the corresponding part of Cardoso’s 1570 Dictionarium Latino–Lusitanicum to identify similarities and differences in a sampling of the sixteenth–century lexicon of Spanish and Portuguese. Espinosa Elorza (239–54) questions whether the neologism amen de (both ‘except for’ and ‘in addition to’) can be correctly attributed to Cervantes, as has been the case to date. The final contribution, by Jiménez Ríos (255–72), discusses the range of strategies employed by Fray Vicente de Burgos in a late fifteenth-century Spanish translation of De las Propiedades de las Cosas, a medieval encyclopedia compiled in the early decades of the thirteenth century by Bartolomé Ánglico. The essays in Aspectos de la neología en el Siglo de Oro: Lengua general y lenguajes especializados are written in academic Spanish and assume at least a basic knowledge of the processes involved in linguistic evolution; derivational, compositional, and syntagmatic neology; linguistic borrowing; and phonological and morphological adaptation. However, the clearly written and well-illustrated introduction goes a long way towards making the volume accessible to readers with a basic command of linguistics and an interest in the subject matter. This is a collection that will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the Spanish lexicon, especially scholars and graduate students in historical linguistics and sociolinguistics, and those working on modern-day neology, especially that resulting from linguistic borrowing. Each of the essays in the first part, “Neología en los tecnolectos del Siglo de Oro,” can stand alone. [End Page 368] However, read together they form a coherent whole that presents a rich picture of linguistic, but also social, political, technological, and economic forces that can lead to and sustain lexical evolution. To give just a few examples, Gutiérrez Rodilla (41–56) discusses the societal pressures...

Gustavo Pittaluga y la expedición para el estudio de la enfermedad del sueño en los territorios españoles del golfo de Guinea (1909)

Sleeping sickness, or human African trypanosomiasis, caused an important mortality at the beginnings of the twentieth century. For this reason the European colonial countries organized several scientific expeditions which contributed decisively to the knowledge of the disease. To study the first investigation performed in Spain on African trypanosomiasis and in the field of tropical medicine, which was accomplished by a scientific expedition to the Spanish territories in the Gulf of Guinea organized by Cajal in 1909. The parasitologist Gustavo Pittaluga, who became one of the most outstanding figures in Spanish medicine and public health during the first third of the twentieth century, commanded the expedition. Other members were Luis Rodriguez Illera and Jorge Ramon Fananas, Cajal's son. Along four months they travelled through the Spanish territories of Guinea, collecting clinical and epidemiological information on sleeping sickness and other diseases, and examining a great number of patients, who had hematological and parasitological studies performed. In the clinical description of the 14 cases of trypanosomiasis studied we have found the first description of the opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome. A pathological study of the brain was performed in one case. In addition, important entomological studies and experimental investigations on trypanosomiasis were also performed. This expedition took place in the context of the impulse of renovation of Spanish science headed by Cajal through the Junta de Ampliacion de Estudios, recently created. In the investigations performed in Guinea, Pittaluga demonstrated a high scientific standard in the fields of clinical medicine, hygiene, parasitology and entomology, comparable with other contemporary European studies.

El destierro de lo maravilloso. Hermafroditas y mutantes sexuales en la España de la Ilustración

This article presents a historical synthesis in order to trace how the collective belief in the existence of hermaphrodites and sex-changes was slowly eroded in the changing medical and cultural context of Enlightenment Spain. In order to explain this change, three interlinked processes are outlined. First, the naturalization of the monster and the disappearance of the "marvellous" in Enlightenment science. Second, the consolidation of modern legal or forensic science and the rise of the medical specialist as the relevant authority in the determination of sexual identity. Third, the emergence of the notion of fundamental biological differences between the sexes. The article concludes by discussing the consequences of these shifts for early nineteenth-century Spanish medicine.

Teresa Huguet-Termes, Jon Arrizabalaga and Harold J. Cook (eds), Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations, Medical History Supplement No. 29 (London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009), pp. vi + 158, £35.00/€40.00/$60.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-0-85484-128-8.

Anyone wishing to take the pulse (so to speak) of the history of early modern Spanish medicine would do well to start with this slim but valuable book. Its half-dozen essays provide a well-rounded sample of recent work in a field that, as Harold Cook stresses in his introduction, still remains largely unnoticed in the English-reading world. Maria Luz Lopez Terrada opens the collection by reviewing the efforts of various institutions to police the health sector in sixteenth-century Valencia. She highlights the lively diversity of this marketplace, and suggests that competition and confusion among different authorities – city and viceregal governments, guilds, and the Protomedicato, or special royal tribunal – wound up encouraging medical pluralism. That one of the physicians whom King Philip II (1556–98) named Protomedico proved to be a committed Paracelsian leads appropriately to the next chapter, Mar Rey Bueno’s overview of alchemical activities in Philip’s court. She argues that, while the King showed little interest in the occult (unlike his relative Rudolf II), he was certainly willing to employ such chemists for their skills in distilling waters and devising other remedies. From this markedly therapeutic (and Lullian) alchemy one moves on to witches, or rather, the saludadores or folk healers, whose many attributes included the ability to detect witches, along with other innate skills, such as the power to cure rabies with their saliva. Maria Tausiet has unearthed numerous intriguing references to these ambiguous figures, who, not surprisingly, were often accused of practising the same sort of black magic they claimed to offer protection against. Teresa Huguet-Termes then focuses on efforts to reorganise the medical sector of Madrid following its designation as capital of the Hispanic empire in 1561. While the runaway growth of the city’s population predictably frustrated these reforms, she joins a larger historiographic consensus in finding little to distinguish Counter-Reformation initiatives in public healthcare from those which prevailed in the Protestant north. Monica Bolufer also keeps the broader European picture in mind while tracing the changing representations of women within a series of texts which ranged from Juan Huarte de San Juan’s best selling The Examination of Wits of 1575, to the enlightened cleric Benito Feijoo’s essay ‘The Defence of Women’, published in 1726. She discerns a few important shifts amid underlying continuity in views of women within learned culture, and suggests that Iberian discourse on sexual difference evolved closely in tandem with medical writing outside the peninsula. Jon Arrizabalaga closes the volume with a portrait of Rodrigo de Castro (c.1546–1627), a Portuguese physician of Jewish background who re-converted to the faith of his ancestors after moving to Hamburg. There he achieved prominence for two publications, a handbook on female diseases and a weighty guide to medical ethics. Arrizabalaga places particular emphasis on the latter, which he sees as marking an important step forward in the self-consciousness of the higher ranks of the healing profession, while it defended Jewish (as well as Islamic and Scholastic) contributions to the long-term development of medical knowledge. The reader of these essays will come away with a strong sense, not only of the dynamism that characterises the small but energetic community of historians of medicine and science in Spain, but also of how, thanks to their efforts, many old cliches are now biting the dust. One certainly bids them well. At the same time, the sympathetic observer may wish that they had taken a few more risks in their analysis, which is heavily outweighed by description. Sacrificing any of the rich empirical detail that is so often found in early modern Spanish documentation would obviously be a mistake. But leavening that detail with a sharper and more sustained analytical effort would help attract greater attention to a sphere of historical research that – as this volume clearly demonstrates – deserves to be much better known.

Medicina intensiva en España

Intensive care medicine is a medical specialty that was officially established in our country in 1978, with a 5-year training program including two years of common core training followed by three years of specific training in an intensive care unit accredited for training. During this 32-year period, intensive care medicine has carried out an intense and varied activity, which has allowed its positioning as an attractive and with future specialty in the hospital setting. This document summarizes the history of the specialty, its current situation, the key role played in the programs of organ donation and transplantation of the National Transplant Organization (after more than 20 years of mutual collaboration), its training activities with the development of the National Plan of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, with a trajectory of more than 25 years, its interest in providing care based on quality and safety programs for the severely ill patient. It also describes the development of reference registries due to the need for reliable data on the care process for the most prevalent diseases, such as ischemic heart disease or ICU-acquired infections, based on long-term experience (more than 15 years), which results in the availability of epidemiological information and characteristics of care that may affect the practical patient's care. Moreover, features of its scientific society (SEMICYUC) are reported, an organization that agglutinates the interests of more than 280 ICUs and more than 2700 intensivists, with reference to the journal Medicina Intensiva, the official journal of the society and the Panamerican and Iberian Federation of Critical Medicine and Intensive Care Societies. Medicina Intensiva is indexed in the Thompson Reuters products of Science Citation Index Expanded (Scisearch ®) and Journal Citation Reports, Science Edition. The important contribution of the Spanish intensive care medicine to the scientific community is also analyzed, and in relation to the future of intensive care medicine in Spain and in Europe, recommendations are made towards specialization in intensive care medicine incorporating in the training program those competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) that should be present an intensivist in Europe and that are extensively fulfilled by the current Spanish training program. The trajectory followed by intensive care medicine in Europe and recently in China, shows the increasing need of intensive care and the progressive recognition of the specialty in economically growing countries, and emphasizes the need of homogenization in the training of future specialists in intensive care medicine globally.

Shared Interests, Competing Authorities in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Medicine

Shared Interests, Competing Authorities in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Medicine

Training and performance on CPR in Spanish Intensive Care Units

Purpose of the study: The Spanish Intensive Care Medicine Society (SEMICYUC), by means of his training school on Resuscitation, PNRCP, has been pioneering in Spain in training on Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) would have to be the hospital service where more and better training and performance on CPR was made. In order to evaluate this hypothesis, the PNRCP made a survey of national scope between the Spanish ICUs. Materials and methods: The survey was sent to 200 Spanish ICUs. The survey contained sections that made reference to, general hospital and ICU characteristics, professional competences of ICU members, welfare activities related to Resuscitation (participation in CPR team, postcardiac arrest protocol, hypothermia, cardiac arrest registry), training on CPR received by hospital and ICU staff, and training on CPR provided by ICU staff. Results: 96 surveys were answered. 86.3% of the hospitals have structured staff training on CPR. In 93.7% of ICUs one or more doctor is Advanced Life Support (ALS) Instructor and in 34.7% one or more nurse is ALS Instructor. 63.2% of ICU doctors receive initial training in ALS, but only 23.2% each receives recyclings before 2 years. 70.5% of ICU nurses receive initial formation in ALS, and 31.6%, recyclings before 2 years. In 76.8% of hospitals, doctors and nurses participate in CPR hospitalary team, 32.6% have a postcardiac arrest protocol, 77.9% perform therapeutic hypothermia and 22.1% have cardiac arrest registry. Conclusions: Almost all ICU have CPR Instructors. Most hospitals declare to make regulated training, generally with ICU trainers. The percentage of initial training and recyclings is suboptimal, but better for nurses than doctors. Although the involvement of ICU staff in activities related to resuscitation is outstanding, there are areas for improvement related to registry and post cardiac arrest care.

Accuracy of Computer-Generated, Spanish-Language Medicine Labels

We evaluated the accuracy of translated, Spanish-language medicine labels among pharmacies in a borough with a large Spanish-speaking population. A cross-sectional, telephone survey of all pharmacies in the Bronx, New York, was performed. Selected pharmacies were visited to learn about the computer software being used to generate Spanish medicine labels. Outcomes included the proportion of pharmacies providing Spanish medicine labels, frequency of computerized translation, and description of Spanish medicine labels produced. Of 316 pharmacies, 286 (91%) participated. Overall, 209 (73%) provided medicine labels in Spanish. Independent pharmacies were significantly more likely to provide Spanish labels than were hospital or chain pharmacies (88% vs 57% vs 32%; P < .0001). Pharmacies that provided Spanish labels mostly commonly (86%) used computer programs to do so; 11% used lay staff members, and 3% used a professional interpreter. We identified 14 different computer programs used to generate Spanish labels, with 70% of pharmacies using 1 of 3 major programs. We evaluated 76 medicine labels generated by 13 different computer programs. Overall, 32 Spanish labels (43%) included incomplete translations (a mixture of English and Spanish), and 6 additional labels contained misspellings or grammar errors, which resulted in an overall error rate of 50%. Although pharmacies were likely to provide medicine labels translated into Spanish, the quality of the translations was inconsistent and potentially hazardous. Unless regulations and funding support the technological advances needed to ensure the safety of such labeling, we risk perpetuating health disparities for populations with limited English proficiency.

Tradition and Innovation in Spanish Medicine: Bartolomé Hidalgo de Agüero and the "Vía Particular"

Tradition and Innovation in Spanish Medicine: Bartolomé Hidalgo de Agüero and the "Vía Particular"

Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations, Medical History Supplement No. 29 (London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009). ISBN 0-85484-128-8 (HC). 5 B&amp;W illustrations, v + 158 pp. by Teresa Huguet-Termes

148 BOOK REVIEWS in a lively and engaging style, this study will appeal to both early modernists and medical historians alike. MICHAEL PICKERING UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE Teresa Huguet-Termes, Jon Arrizabalaga, and Harold J. Cook, eds, Health and Medicine in Hapsburg Spain: Agents, Practices, Representations, Medical History Supplement No. 29 (London: The Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL, 2009). ISBN 0-85484-128-8 (HC). 5 B&W illustrations, v + 158 pp. As Harold J. Cook argues in the introduction to this volume, for too long English language readers have had a limited view of Spanish science, and little has been available to English speakers. The editors organised a conference in 2006 from which these papers (and others invited subsequently) stem. Not all the authors are specialists of medicine, but together their papers provide insight into Spanish medicine in a variety of ways. MaríaLuzLópezTerradasetsoutthesystemsofcontroldeveloped in Valencia to regulate practice, reveals the extent of medical pluralism, and finishes with a case study of Llorenç Coçar, named protomédico y soprevisitador real [royal physician and supervisor in chief] in 1589. He was practising chemical medicine with support from Philip II but was charged by colleagues at the medical faculty for developing Paracelsian medicines at home and overcharging. She reads this as an attempt to limit crown control of the practice and licensing of official medicine and argues that Coçar’s case highlights both the extent and support of pluralism, as well as the forces of regulation and their varied concerns. MarReyBuenoexploresPhilipII’sinterestinsecrets,distillations, and other alchemical ideas, which have previously been seen as attempts to acquire gold and to preserve his life. A more detailed analysis, she argues, suggests a deeper intellectual curiosity as he firstly employed diverse specialists across different cities, and later established a laboratory at El Escorial. Rey Bueno sees this not as an occult practice by the Counter-Reformation king, but as a natural interest in the world, which was directed towards outcomes for his Empire. María Tausiet explores the distinctions between witches and Health & History ● 12/2 ● 2010 149 those healers who claimed divine healing power. Her analysis suggests that secular court trials produced harsher outcomes, the majority legimitising the cases as witchcraft that came before them, whereas ecclesiastical courts allowed more investigation and were generally less willing to accept the notion of witchcraft generally. An increasing number of saludadores [charismatic healers] were however being prosecuted, not for the principles of healing that underpinned their activities, but for forging official documentation. Opinion on saludadores varied within the Church, which upheld the possibility that such healers might exist by granting licenses, although such faith healing could never be fully controlled. In her chapter, Teresa Huguet-Termes explores hospital developments in Madrid, which was made the capital in 1561. She argues that improvements to health care were used as political tools for change by the dynasty, and that the second half of the sixteenth century saw new charitable endeavours and a slow move towards medical specialisation. Although crown legislation focussed on the royal hospital and sick paupers, Huguet-Termes argues that by allowing healthy paupers to beg, Spain’s authorities were upholding key Counter-Reformation Catholic principles and giving alms-givers the opportunity to practice individual charity. Moving to literary presentations, Mónica Bolufer examines humanist physician Juan Huarte de San Juan’s Examen de ingenios para las sciencas [The Examination of Men’s Wits] (1575) which argued that the height of achievement was to perfect characteristics distinct to each sex. This mirrored notions of different and essential moral, intellectual qualities and social functions of the sexes to be found in popular literature. In the case of breastfeeding advice books, Bolufer notes that authors were sensitive to social class distinctions; although they encouraged breastfeeding, they were also aware of the social tensions among the elite that render it less likely. She concludes that whereas sixteenth- and seventeenth-century physicians justified contemporary social practices, by the eighteenth century maternal breastfeeding gained prominence among medical writers as new values towards privacy, family, and domesticity emerged. In the book’s final chapter, Jon Arrizabalaga situates Roderigo De Castro’s intellectual agenda within the context of...

Abelardo Gallego (1879–1930) and his contributions to histotechnology: The Gallego stains

The Gallego general tissue stain is used in histology and histopathology and stains beautifully connective tissue, in which all nuclei are stained in magenta red, epithelial cytoplasm in red–yellow, connective tissue is stained in brilliant green, muscle in olive green, and keratinized epithelium and blood in grass green. There is also Gallego's method for differential staining of elastic tissue that enables a complete differentiation between elastic and collagenous connective tissue. The elastic tissue is stained in brilliant fuschin red, while collagen is stained in brilliant green. Abelardo Gallego was born in Spain on September 10, 1879. He was appointed as professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and in 1921 became full-time professor of Histology and Pathology in Madrid supported by Ramón y Cajal. Gallego conducted extensive research into veterinary pathology. Don Abelardo was a quiet, reserved, but friendly, sensitive, optimistic and persistent person. Weakened by a bout of bronchitis, Gallego died aged 51 on February 3, 1930, and was buried at the Almudena Cemetery, in Madrid. Gallego was one of the most outstanding scientists of Spanish veterinary medicine and some of his achievements are reviewed.

Categorías diagnósticas y género: los ejemplos de la clorosis y la neurastenia en la medicina española contemporánea (1877-1936)

Chlorosis and Neurasthenia are two classical examples of pathological dissociations and the difficulties involved in approaching their diagnosis using scientific-naturalistic criteria. In the realm of those difficulties, the study examines the androcentric viewpoint and the ideological perspective of Contemporary Spanish Medicine when addressing the feminine nature and women's pathologies. Moreover, based on the similarities with present-day pain and fatigue syndromes, the study underlines the need to review the clinical approach to these illnesses by attempting to overcome the existing biomedical limitations.

Rhinitis and Asthma Comorbidity in Spain: The RINAIR Study

Rhinitis and asthma share an inflammatory mechanism, epidemiological patterns, and symptoms that affect both the nose and the bronchi. The RINAIR study examined the prevalence and characteristics of rhinitis in asthma patients in Spain.This prospective epidemiological study was carried out with the participation of 15% of Spanish respiratory medicine specialists sampled randomly from different geographic areas. The study population was composed of 703 asthmatic patients aged over 16 years who were enrolled between February and September 2005. Patient characteristics, prevalence of rhinitis, lung function, allergy test results, and treatment of rhinitis were analyzed.Seventy-one percent (n=499) of the asthmatic patients had rhinitis. These patients were younger (43.8 years vs 55.4 years; P< .0001) and had less severe asthma (forced expiratory volume in 1 second [FEV1], 85.7% vs 79.7% [P< .001]) than asthmatic patients who did not have rhinitis. A correlation was observed between the severity of asthma and the severity of rhinitis (P< .001). Atopy was significantly associated with rhinitis (odds ratio, 6.25; 95% confidence interval, 4.3-9.1): 84% of atopic patients and 51% of nonatopic patients had rhinitis. Treatment of rhinitis was associated with an increase in FEV1 (P=.057), irrespective of sex, age, severity of asthma, or smoking.Seventy-one percent of asthmatic patients who attended respiratory medicine clinics had rhinitis. These patients were younger and had milder asthma than asthmatics who did not have rhinitis. Furthermore, atopy was correlated with asthma associated with rhinitis. Treatment of rhinitis led to improved lung function. These findings highlight the need to study and treat the upper and lower respiratory tract as a single airway.

Federico Rubio y Galí, "Príncipe de la Cirugía", y la Urología en la Sevilla del siglo XIX

The present work describes the figure of Dr. Federico Rubio y Gali, pioneer and promoter of Spanish Medicine during the 19th century, as well as the repercussion of his scientific talent in the development of modern urology. It is also mentioned the creation of the Free School of Medicine and Surgery of Seville, as concretion of his educational vocation and contribution to the teaching of urological knowledge.