The Prophylaxis of Madness as a Disciplinary Challenge in the Oliva Open-Door (Córdoba, Argentina, 1930-1943)

Abstract

The historiography of psychiatry recognizes a second stage in the construction of the argentine asylum system at the beginning of the 20th century, whose objective was to extend assistance to the mentally ill to the interior of the country. the first establishment founded for such purposes was the asilo Colonia Mixto de alienados in oliva, Córdoba. its institutional environment was critical from the beginning and became more acute in the 1930s. there is a theoretical gap on the link between the institutional crisis of the time and specific disciplinary dynamics such as the weakening of the open-door model and the creation of the Liga argentina de Higiene Mental. This paper addresses the conformation of the articulated device in the asilo de oliva, by reconstructing the processes that defined its mode of operation in the context that took place between 1930 and 1943. the publications of local psychiatrists in the institutional scientific bulletin are approached, recovering the transformations developed in the establishment. During this period, national socio-political changes crystallized that had repercussions on oliva's organization and activated a complex process in the scientific agenda of argentine psychiatry, linked to the professionalization of the specialty and the redefinition of its conceptual and practical frameworks.