The Controversies between Doctors and Spiritists during the Peronist Period (1947-1952)

Abstract

The aim is to relieve the debate between doctors and spiritualists during the first Peronist government (1946-1955), with the creation of the Instituto de Psicopatología Aplicada [Institute of Applied Psychopathology] (IPA), which firmly adhered to the idea that social eugenics fulfilled a health role among those who cultivated mediumistic practices. The IPA was an entity led by doctor Ramón Carrillo, an Argentinean sanitarist, made up of doctors interested in the scientific study of mediums, who released to the neurologist Orlando Canavesio, who coined the socalled “deviations” of Spiritualism practices. This purpose was a marker between the goverment and medical science around the problem of mediumistic practices, which pointed particularly towards the activity of the Kardecist societies grouped under the Argentine Spiritualist Confederation.