The new lifeblood of the Spanish nation: the Regenerationist Movement and the genesis of the Cajal Institut in the late 19th century
- Autores: Ángel Luis González de Pablo
- Localización: European Journal of anatomy, ISSN-e 1136-4890, Vol. 23, Nº. Extra 1 (Honoring Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), an 'exemplary man'), 2019 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Supplement 1), págs. 29-37
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
Different external or sociological factors play a part in the development of scientific institutions and it is not uncommon for them to be more deci-sive than the internal or scientific factors. This pa-per analyses the significance of one of those exter-nal factors in the genesis of the Biological Re-search Laboratory (Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas), which was the seed of the future Cajal Institute (Instituto Cajal): the development of the regenerationist political movement that emerged during the Spanish crisis of the late 19th century.
Using sources from the field of journalism, three points in the formation of the Biological Research Laboratory are studied: 1. The appearance of the press’s first demands for a laboratory or institute for Cajal during 1898 and 1899, starting in the new publications linked to regenerationism that emerged during those years; 2. The launch, on foot of Cajal receiving the Moscow Prize, of an intense press campaign for the foundation of that laboratory or institute in the summer of 1900, run by the daily press that was most closely linked to political regenerationism; and 3. The speedy es-tablishment of the Biological Research Laboratory just over two months after the beginning of that campaign, in November 1900, by a government eager to maintain its regenerationist image.
The paper concludes by confirming the decisive role played by the rise and fall of the regeneration-ist political movement, built around the National Union party (Unión Nacional), at these three points in the laboratory’s formation.
