El Consejo Nacional de Higiene y la consolidación de una elite profesional al servicio del Estado. Argentina, 1880-1900

Abstract

This article analyzes aspects of the process of consolidation of a medical intelligentsia in Argentina during the last twenty years of the 19th century. It deals particularly with its link with the State through the Council of Hygiene, an institution charged with fixing health policy at the time. Thanks to the growing influence of these doctors, paradoxically closer to the Government but also more autonomous, the Council acquired during the period examined a set of new attributions at the national level, while at the same time it managed to give more attention to so-called internal health.