“The same as at home”: the construction of the hospital patient in the surgical clinics of 1900 Barcelona

Abstract

The objective of this study was to highlight the role in configuring hospital patients of surgical clinics created in Barcelona during the last two de-cades of the 18th century, as a part of a general medicalization process in con- temporary society. The clinic of gynecologist Miquel A. Fargas (1858-1916) is taken as reference to understand the reasons for a new medical and business strategy that grants centrality to the patient in a novelmedical scenario under the control of professionals. The setting of the surgical clinic is constituted as a domestic hospital and favors a psychological change in the relationship of pa- tients with new medical practices, far from the collective imaginary of the old general charity hospital. Thisprocess takes place in the name of the effective- ness and efficiency of the private surgical clinics, which in turn delimit medical specialties and diminish the agency of patients, who gain in physical and emo- tional wellbeing but lose in identity. This care model prospered and proliferatedduring the first third of the 20th century in a competitive socioeconomic context experiencing growth. This report points to the decisive contribution of the clinic, which becomes the hegemonic care space in the mid-20th century, to the medi- calization of most of Catalan society.