Abstract

ARIAS BAUTISTA, M.T.. White doves between love and pain: Medical Care, Daughters of Charity and Hospital "Gómez Ulla". Sanid. Mil. [online]. 2011, vol.67, suppl.1, pp.141-176. ISSN 1887-8571.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1887-85712011000300001.

Medical care, since the dawn of mankind, has conceptually adopted different meanings throughout the times, as well as health and sickness. Women have been involved for centuries in this medical care, at home, as an extension of their activities as lifegivers, and not only for children but also for the elderly, sick and disabled. Moreover, women, from a wide range of origins, and more or less qualified, cared for the sick out of their own homes at different levels until the Low Middle Ages, when their aptitudes and capacities were denied as they were not allowed to enter the Universities. Christianity introduced the values of mercy, charity and compassion, which were taken up particularly by many women who offered their lives in service to their fellow men and women, mitigating the sorrows and sufferings of the unfortunates and dispossessed. In the 18th century in France St. Vincent de Paul and Sainte Louise de Marillac started a simple organization, the Brotherhood of Charity to help the needy in the Parisian parishes. A little later this originated the Daughters of Charity with their own characteristics and the objective to provide service to the poor and sick. Due to their praiseworthy labor soon the Daughters of Charity became an irreplaceable part of many institutions: foundling homes, orphanages, military and civilian hospitals, prisons, insane asylums, leper colonies... These nuns arrived in Spain in 1790 and spread immediately all over the country improving everything they became responsible for. They were fully committed to taking care of sick and wounded soldiers in the numerous conflicts in the 19th century: Spanish War of Independence, Carlist Wars, African and Overseas Wars... They continued their activities during the Spanish Civil War in field hospitals in the so-called national zone. In the Military Hospital of Carabanchel (Madrid) they worked industriously since its inauguration in 1896 and they are still doing it in the new buildings of the current Central Defense Hospital "Gómez Ulla". During all this time they have striven to demonstrate the education that was required of them without forgetting the duties that being Daughters of Charity imposed upon them: love and service to the needy with a spirit of humility and modesty.

Keywords : History of the Women; Daughters of Charity; Medical Service; Women and Medical Care; Women and Health.

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