[The National Royal Academy of Medicine and the Civil War (1936-1939)]

The Civil war (1936-1939) caused the most serious crisis in the history of the National Royal Academy of Medicine. The Government of the Republic ordered its dissolution in September 1936, and they proposed the creation of a higher organization, "The National Institute of Culture", whose main aim was to join all the Academies that had become sections and that were rigidly controlled by the political power; the course of the war sotpped this project being carried out. In the army-dominated Spain there was a similar process; the "Institute of Spain" (January, 1938) was created and it joined the National Academies although each of them did not lose its own personality. The Academy of Medicine was established in San Sebastian until 1939, and was managed by Enrique Suñer, with the collaboration of Leonardo de la Peña and Santiago Carro; the three of them were named by the Ministry of National Education. The dispersion of the members of the Academy, who had abandoned Madrid, did not allow the Academy to develop its traditional scientific activity, which was not restored until the activity was re-established in Madrid in the summer of 1939.