[Public health within the framework of local administration: the Provincial Health Institute of Alicante (1924-1936)]

The development of the Provincial Institute of Hygiene of Alicante is described. In the first part the different national regulations that sanctioned the constitution and the successive reorganizations of the Provincial Institutes of Hygiene are reviewed. In the second part, archival sources are used to reconstruct the life of the life of the Provincial Institute of Hygiene, from its predecessor, the Provincial Health Brigade, to the outbreak of the Civil War. We study both the first period, when administration of the Institute was dependent on the County Council, and the later period during the Second Republic, when it was run by a municipal mancommunity.