[Saints in medicine during the great wars of the twentieth century]. / Santos y beatos de la medicina en las grandes guerras del siglo XX.

ABSTRACT

In the political and social context of World War periods and unstoppable technological advances, health professionals in the early twentieth century tried to orientate the practice of medicine towards a modern anthropological concept close to the biomedical perspective, which defends the dignity of a person. Threatened by the risks represented by collectivism and the meanness of the prevailing repressive governments, a personal struggle for the defense of life aroused, which was socially expressed by the advent of bioethics, psychoanalytic theories and the concept that environment has an important role in people’s health and welfare. And above all, the appearance of a paradoxical claim of religious ideals as support of science in times of overall crisis.