Physician in the Age of Liberal Reform

<p>Spanish physicians constituted a crucial political force in the nineteenth century during the tumultuous process of nation-building that followed the War of Independence against the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. Many participated in the Cortes of C��diz which drafted Spain's first constitution in 1812 and went on to prove highly influential in the public sphere and legislature during the liberal revolution that undertook the establishment of a new and precarious political order. <p/>Andrew W. Keitt's <i>A Physician in the Age of Liberal Reform </i>excavates the life and work of one such doctor Ildefonso Mart��nez y Fern��ndez whose brief career coincided with the consolidation of the liberal revolution and the drive to improve and professionalize Spanish medicine. Born in 1821 Mart��nez was a polymath and activist whose prolific literary and scholarly output made him a fixture in the political and intellectual ferment of midcentury Spain until his untimely death in 1855 during a devastating outbreak of cholera. He produced a significant body of intellectual research made key contributions to the profession and cultivated a deep engagement with the political struggles of the period. His impassioned endeavors as chronicled by Keitt highlight the efforts of Spanish physicians to mobilize medical science toward forging a new political culture for liberal Spain.</p>