A Physician in the Age of Liberal Reform

Book excerpt: Spanish physicians constituted a crucial political force in the nineteenth century during the tumultuous process of nation-building that followed the War of Independence against the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. Many participated in the Cortes of Cádiz, which drafted Spain’s first constitution in 1812 and went on to prove highly influential in the public sphere and legislature during the liberal revolution that undertook the establishment of a new, and precarious, political order. Andrew W. Keitt’s A Physician in the Age of Liberal Reform excavates the life and work of one such doctor, Ildefonso Martínez y Fernández, whose brief career coincided with the consolidation of the liberal revolution and the drive to improve and professionalize Spanish medicine. Born in 1821, Martínez was a polymath and activist whose prolific literary and scholarly output made him a fixture in the political and intellectual ferment of midcentury Spain until his untimely death in 1855 during a devastating outbreak of cholera. He produced a significant body of intellectual research, made key contributions to the profession, and cultivated a deep engagement with the political struggles of the period. His impassioned endeavors, as chronicled by Keitt, highlight the efforts of Spanish physicians to mobilize medical science toward forging a new political culture for liberal Spain.