Gesundheit und Parlamentarismus in Spanien: Die Politikder Cortes und die öffentliche Gesundheitsfürsorge in der Restaurationszeit (1876-1923) (review)

Hedwig Herold-Schmidt. Gesundheit und Parlamentarismus in Spanien: Die Politik der Cortes und die öffentliche Gesundheitsfürsorge in der Restaurationszeit (1876-1923). Historische Studien, no. 458. Husum, Germany: Matthiesen Verlag, 1999. 640 pp. Ill. DM 158.00 (3-7868-1458-9).

This book is a revised version of the dissertation presented by Hedwig Herold-Schmidt at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1997 under the same title. It presents a systematic analysis of the parliamentary interventions on health issues between 1876 and 1923, as well as of the MPs who made them. Its main sources are the minutes of the sessions of both chambers (Congreso and Senado) and other materials from the Parliamentary Archives, plus a careful and thorough scrutiny of four important newspapers: two with a political stance (El Imparcial, 1876-1923, close to the liberal dynastic parties, and El Socialista, 1886-1923, the voice of the Socialist Worker Party), plus El Siglo Médico (1876-1923) and La Medicina Ibera (1917-1923), two standard sources for medical opinions of the Madrid-based medical elite, personally and politically closer to the dynastic parties. Herold-Schmidt has provided an ample bibliographic review of both international and Spanish material on the history of health, history of population, and political history, elaborated in the exhaustive manner characteristic of traditional German research.

The author has found 1,056 meaningful interventions on health matters in the Spanish Parliaments of the period, 10 percent of which were legislation proposals; they were made by 948 MPs from both chambers, around 90 of whom maintained a commitment to health issues over time. These provide the material basis for her study, which makes an original contribution to Spanish political and health history: she offers a nationwide, centralist perspective that will bear interesting fruits when considered alongside impending works on the periphery--on local or regional institutions and particular health issues.

The book is composed of five long chapters in which the actors, themes, and economics are examined, including an introduction and a chapter of conclusions, as well as the customary subject index, an acronyms index, and an index of tables and figures. Four appendices complete the thorough information given to readers with biographies of more than 150 people repeatedly referred to in the main text, a list of the 92 outstanding MPs in health debates, brief but meaningful biographical data on the MPs who were physicians in each new Parliament, and the original Spanish text of the longest quoted statements. This book is therefore quite easy to consult, something that can never be praised enough in a work of this length.

The first chapter, "Spain in the Time of Restoration," presents basic data on population, politics, and economy for the period, and gives a general overview of health politics "from medical police to the birth of social insurances." The second chapter is devoted to a prosopographical analysis of the personalities of the Spanish MPs of the time, emphasizing those who were most active in the health field and providing data on their training, employment, political profile, honors, and membership in organizations and associations. The third long chapter follows the trail that led to health reforms, starting with an outline of the situation before 1875 and going through the several unsuccessful attempts to generate a new basic Public Health Law during the nineteenth century (in 1882, 1884, and 1899), the General Health Regulations issued in 1904, and the measures advanced against epidemic diseases in the new scientific contexts of bacteriology (1911, 1914) and social medicine (1919, 1922). The great problems of health--infectious diseases, the damaged conditions of urban life (waters, drains, food, housing), and the fight against the dreaded tuberculosis--are reported in the fourth chapter, ending with a discussion of the always tiny health budgets.

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