The treatment of madness in Spain in the second half of the 19th century: conceptual aspects.

This paper deals with the conceptual principles which governed the treatment of madness in Spain during the nineteenth century. Against the general view that treatments were targeted to diseases, we argue that clinicians were more syndrome-oriented than disease-oriented in their treatments. Mental syndromes were classified into groups according to the different treatments that were thought to be useful. We also describe the conceptual basis of moral treatment and study the correlation between somatic and mental disease in relation to treatment.