The founding of the first psychiatric hospital in the World in Valencia*

Abstract

Several hospitals, countries and cultures claim the privilege of being the first to have provided care to people suffering mental illnesses. Among them, the «Hospital de los Inocentes» (Hospital of the Innocents) founded in Valencia in 1410 stands out due to its originality and there are historic and cultural reasons to recognize its primacy. Furthermore, the organization and functioning of this institution and the model, spread like wildfire through the entire Iberian Peninsula during the 15th Century and shortly after through American Spanish speaking countries. For centuries, these establishments were considered exemplary and were copied in other European Countries. At the beginning of the 19th Century in Spain a forced sale of the Catholic Church properties or their disamortization among other a large number of hospitals establishments took place. This lead to a terrible collapse of health care for the mentally. From then on it took more than one century to recover a decent standard. The vicissitudes of the creation and progress of the hospital of Valencia and others which followed the example that allows to affirm that it was really the first psychiatric hospital in the World are analyzed in this present work.