La salud como necesidad social en el origen de una asignatura escolar de higiene en España: siglos XIX y XX

Abstract

Between the 19th and 20th centuries, a school subject of health education was introduced and developed in Spain, the so-called subject of Hygiene: its origin and development were parallel to the health situation, with both educational and preventive objectives. Illness in the 19th century was considered by hygienist doctors to be the result of ignorance, misery and neglect, and this, together with the seriousness of the health situation in Spain, implied a pressing social need to apply an education that included the extension of practical and preventive notions of Hygiene, then defined as the art of preserving and improving health. The work covers a long period between 1870 and 1930, during which the subject of Hygiene existed at all times, and which was already established and introduced as a school subject at the end of the 19th century and compulsory in primary education at the beginning of the 20th century. The continuous presence of this subject in school curricula and the very large number of school textbooks on Hygiene corroborate the transcendence and implementation of this subject, since its origin invoked as a health and social necessity.