216 that much of Galdós‘ medical documentation for the novel was drawn from Spanish sources‖ (Gordon, medical 67), but fails to cite an authority for this statement. In contrast, while the records of the Otero trial were undoubtedly fundamental in the portrayal of Mariano, a review of chapters 1 and 2 of this dissertation will indicate that effectively all psychiatric theory in Spain at this time was derived from ideas developed in France, notably the moral treatment of Pinel,345 the monomania nosology of Esquirol 346 and the degeneration theory of Morel and Magnan. In common with their contemporaries, Pedro Mata and José María Esquerdo mixedand-matched these ideas at will, while original contributions from Spain were negligible.347 Taking this into account, Gordon‘s statement, ―In the period 1860-1885 psychiatry was dominated by the belief that mental illness was invariably a symptom of degeneration‖ (Gordon, medical 67) is demonstrably untrue and must be revised in the light of much subsequent investigation by historians of French and Spanish nineteenth century psychiatry.348 Campos Marín specifically contradicts this when he maintains,
―el escaso interés que el degeneracionismo suscitó en los alienistas de estas instituciones [los manicomios privados] a pesar de la importancia que éste moral treatment of Pinel: Campos Marìn observes that, ―hasta bien entrado del siglo XX, los psiquiatras españoles cantarán las glorias del tratamiento moral y del manicomio para volver al alienado a la razón.‖ (Campos Marìn, psiquiatría 55) 346 monomania nosology of Esquirol: the genesis and decline of this nosology in France are well described by Jan Goldstein in Console and Classify, chapter 5. 347 negligible contribution: This melancholy assessment is supported in the oft-quoted passage in the prologue of Laìn Entralgo to Peraza de Ayala‘s La psiquiatría española en el siglo XIX. (1947). After discussing the contributions to psychiatry of Germany and France, Laín continues, ―¿Qué hizo la Psiquiatrìa española mientras acontecìa esa enorme gigantomaquia en torno a la enfermedad mental? El excelente estudio de Peraza, a cuyas páginas asoman, de cuando en cuando, saetillas de melancólica ironía, nos da la respuesta innegable: nada.‖ (Peraza de Ayala xii) 348 invariably a symptom of degeneration: this erroneous generalization is repeated (Franz 36), and is an example of the not uncommon repetition of incorrect secondary sources that I have encountered. 345