A sightseeing over the illusion: the portuguese nurses and the alienated at the end of nineteenth century

Abstract

Nurses, in Portugal, crossed significant moments of transition in the passage from the 19th century to the 20th century. However, it was at the end of the 19th century that the portuguese nurses began to be distinguished as fundamental agents in the assistance of the alienated at psychiatric hospitals. This century, in the country, was fruitful in establishing spaces for the assistance of the alienated: by 1848, in Lisbon, the Hospital de Rilhafoles was opened; in 1883 was inaugurated the Hospital de Alienados do Conde de Ferreira, in Oporto; and, in 1893, the Casa do Sagrado Coração de Jesus, in Sintra, received its first alienated. In all these spaces worked nurses, secular or religious.