History

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Evolution

emblemaArchives detailing current activities of the Academy once again become available for the years beginning in 1792. New statutes grounded in its constitution were sanctioned in May, 1796, and a plan was established for true incorporation into the realm of modern European scientific thought. The plan also called for a systematic calendar of activities touching upon topics ranging from medical topographies to descriptions of endemic and epidemic diseases. Treatment of such topics was pedagogically sound and mindful of such issues as bibliography, forensic medicine, hospital management, medical politics, plagiarism and regulation of medications and therapies.
The Medical Academy thus became an instrument with which the Bourbons could arduously attend to the general public but without having to deal directly with it. An impressive list of academics, among them Gimbernat, Mutis, Casal, Virgili, Virrey y Mange, Lacaba and Hipólito Ruiz would embark on the enormous task of preparing a wealth of dissertations and medical reports which were published in 1797.

Método de la colección y reposición de las medicinasThe next century would be as turbulent for the Academy as it was for the nation in general. The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars had a deleterious effect on the scientific infrastructure which had been so carefully fashioned. That which had long been considered culturally conducive suddenly became threatening. Accordingly, the academy attempted to maintain the lowest possible profile with regard to academic activity, protocol and fiscal matters.
All would be to no avail, however, as in November, 1824, the Supreme Governmental Medical Commission ordered closure of the Academy, which would last for the next four years. In 1831, the administration of Castelló would manage to approve a general set of guidelines for all literary works within the Royal Academies of Surgery and Medicine, organizations firmly under the control of the Commission, and install its own university – until then a marginalized institution within the academic world. Such control would be iron clad until the death of Fernando VII. The period which followed (known as the era of isabelina) began to see the rebirth of academic activity, along with an eventual sanctioning of new rules in governance of a Madrilenian Royal Academy of Medicine, a landmark in its history as it went on to officially become the National Royal Academy of Medicine.

Alfonso XIIIThis new regime would replace years of intellectual isolation, repression and control with a veritable and unbounded code of academic freedom which would flourish until the present, except for the tragic period of the Spanish Civil War of 1936. Until the start of the war, the Academy of Medicine had enjoyed a “golden half century in the healing arts”. It had been during this time that numerous physicians gained prestige in their specialties. The subsequent animosity and repression which was tragically borne by the nation eventually subsided into yet another fruitful era of slow but steady restoration of academic values and successive statutory reform. Such would blossom into the select group of physicians, surgeons, pharmacists, veterinarians, biologists, physicists and engineers which now silently yet efficiently go about the business of safeguarding the nation’s health and health care system.