La ayuda humanitaria de los British Quakers durante la Guerra Civil española (1936-1939): el caso del Hospital Infantil de Polop de la Marina (Alicante) / Humanitarian aid from the British Quakers during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): the case of the Children's Hospital of Polop de la Marina (Alicante)

Debido a su condición geoestratégica de retaguardia durante la Guerra Civil española, el País Valenciano se convirtió en una de las zonas republicanas que acogieron mayor número de refugiados, entre ellos muchos niños. El Estado republicano se mostró del todo incapaz de afrontar los retos derivados de esta crisis demográfica y sanitaria e hizo un llamamiento en busca de ayuda. Una de las primeras agencias humanitarias transnacionales en responder fue la Religious Society of Friends del Reino Unido, más conocidos como el Friends Service Committee o simplemente los Quakers, una comunidad religiosa disidente fundada en Inglaterra en el siglo XVII. Durante la Guerra Civil, los cuáqueros impulsaron numerosas iniciativas de carácter humanitario en los dos bandos enfrentados, habilitando colonias agrícolas, talleres, cantinas y hospitales. Este trabajo analiza en profundidad el hospital infantil que los Quakers habilitaron en Alicante en septiembre de 1937 y que posteriormente fue trasladado al municipio de Polop de la Marina. Nos centraremos en aspectos tales como la ubicación y administración del centro sanitario, el tipo de pacientes que allí se atendieron, el personal sanitario que allí trabajó, la evolución del hospital a lo largo de la guerra y su recorrido tras la victoria franquista, así como la motivación que impulsó a los voluntarios británicos a promover ese proyecto y a llevarlo a cabo. Asimismo, reconstruiremos la figura y la trayectoria de Manuel Blanc Rodríguez (1899-1971), un pediatra desconocido por la historiografía, que asumió la dirección de ese hospital británico

During the Spanish Civil War, the Valencian Country became one of the republican zones receiving greater number of refugees, due to its rearguard geostrategic condition. Among them there were many children. The Republican State was totally unable to face the challenges of this demographic and health crisis and appealed for help. The British Religious Society of Friends (also known as the Friends Service Committee or Quakers) was one of the first transnational humanitarian agencies to respond. They are a dissident religious community founded in England in the 17th century. During the Spanish Civil War, the Quakers encouraged many humanitarian initiatives on both sides in conflict, as agricultural colonies, workshops, canteens and hospitals. This paper analyzes in depth the children's hospital that the Quakers enabled in Alicante in September 1937, later transferred to the village of Polop de la Marina. We will focus on aspects such as the location and administration of the health center, the type of patients that were attended, the health personnel who worked, the evolution of the hospital throughout the war and what happened to it after the Francoist victory. We will also stress the motivation of the British volunteers to promote and carry out this project. Finally, we will reconstruct the career of Manuel Blanc Rodríguez (1899-1971), the pediatrician who assumed the management of that British hospital. His figure remains unknown by the historiographys

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Platt Report: from exclusion, to toleration and parental participation in the care of the hospitalized child.

This paper commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Platt Report in the United Kingdom and traces the history of parental hospital visiting in relation to its recommendation that, 'Parents should be allowed to visit whenever they can, and to help as much as possible with the care of the child' (Ministry of Health, 1959: 38). It tracks how this goal was achieved and identifies how parents moved from being excluded towards being tolerated and finally accepted as participants in their child's care. This is set against a backdrop of changes in society, systems of healthcare and nurse education as well as trends in the care of the hospitalized children from national and international perspectives. It concludes that if we are to meet the needs of hospitalized children in the 21st century, the focus of research must now shift towards seeking their perspectives on care.

Changing attitudes towards the care of children in hospital: a new assessment of the influence of the work of Bowlby and Robertson in the UK, 1940-1970.

It is generally believed that the work of Bowlby and Robertson was new and decisive in changing the hospital conditions for young children. The fact that parents in the UK and other European countries can now visit their sick child at any time they wish or even room-in is attributed to an acquaintance with Bowlby's findings and Robertson's well-known films about the potentially detrimental effects of hospital stays for young children. In this paper we shall argue that this picture is incomplete and that, historically, things were rather more intricate. Bowlby and Robertson were neither the first nor the only researchers who tried to change hospital policies. Moreover, the older hospital policies were not uniformly bad. Long before Bowlby and Robertson began their plea for reforms, several individuals and hospitals had already introduced conditions that we now still regard as exemplary. The whole change towards more liberal, flexible, and humane practices in children's wards took place over several decades and was fuelled by both worried medical doctors, pressure groups of parents, sympathetic editors of medical journals, and emerging new research findings such as those provided by Bowlby and Robertson. In that societal debate, the voices of Bowlby and Robertson were influential but not necessarily new or decisive.

[The historic-cultural evolution of the children hospitalization]. / L'evoluzione storico-culturale dell'ospedalizzazione infantile.

The aim of describing an history of children-hospitalization is to underline the hard process in which the child has been recognized as an active and independent subject, a person with rights. In this long historic-cultural process, the important birth of Pediatrics at the end of the XIXth century testifies a change that implies the awareness of the subject's particular diversity of treatment and the new sensibility gained during the Enlightenment. This sensibility, close to the psychological needs of an hospitalized child, opened new possibilities of making the children-hospitalization more human, combining the physical and psychological sides.

Separation and psychological trauma: a paradox examined.

This paper explores the separation of children from their parents that took place in British hospitals in the middle years of the 20th century (Bradley 2001). It is widely believed that this child-parent separation was the product of a failure to understand the child's psychological and social needs (Bowlby et al 1939, Brain and Maclay 1968, Branstetter 1966, Editorial 1957). Paediatric nurses have been blamed for this ignorance and the resulting failure of care (Bowlby et al 1939). However, evidence suggests that such accusations are flawed in logic and in fact: paediatric nurses of the time were fully conversant with the prevailing understanding of child psychology and practised that psychology. In this article it is argued that the cause of child-parent separation lies elsewhere. Data are drawn from a study concerning the social history of paediatric nursing between 1920 and 1970 (Jolley 2004). Oral history data were collected from past nurses of children and from people who had been in hospital as children within this period. Oral history data from 30 participants were recorded, content analysed and validated by the participants.

'A 2-year-old goes to hospital': a 50th anniversary reappraisal of the impact of James Robertson's film.

James Robertson's film, 'A 2-year-old Goes to Hospital', premiered in November 1952, is seen as a seminal influence on the development of hospital care for children. Its importance is amplified by a belief that Robertson's work represented a wholly new perspective on such care, challenging an orthodoxy that had remained unchanged over the previous 100 years and that completely excluded parents from hospital wards. In this article I support the importance of Robertson's film, but challenge the belief that its content was a radical departure from contemporary thinking. I argue instead that the film's importance lies in the way that it communicated ideas to professionals and parents, and discuss the development of changes in thinking about the care of hospitalized children that had begun some years before 'A 2-year-old Goes to Hospital' was released.

Los niños en el Manicomio General de México 1910-1935 / Children at the Manicomio General de México 1910-1935

Trata sobre los modos de vida proporcionados a los niños con trastornos mentales que estuvieron internos en el Manicomio General de México, entre los años 1910 y 1935.

Dying of sadness: hospitalism and child welfare in Mexico City, 1920-1940

It examines hospitalism syndrome, a developmental condition afflicting infants in long-term institutional care. It explores the idea and impact of revolutionary maternalism: efforts to reduce the reliance on internment-based care for children´s illnesses by integrating maternal and child public health initiatives with others aimed at relieving orphanage overcrowding.(AU)

Los niños en el Manicomio General de México 1910-1935 / Children at the Manicomio General de México 1910-1935

Trata sobre los modos de vida proporcionados a los niños con trastornos mentales que estuvieron internos en el Manicomio General de México, entre los años 1910 y 1935.(AU)