[Scholarships for a science in crisis: the JAE as sponsor for macroscopic anatomy (1912-1931)]

Beside the creation of national research institutions, the patronage work of the JAE (through scholarships and recognition given to Spanish scientists in the first third of the 20th century) was important in opening the door to the silver age of Spanish science. In the morphologic sciences, macroscopic anatomy was an almost closed science and in crisis with regard to the microscopic sciences and embryology. Despite this setting, the JAE chose to promote this science, importing European anatomical pedagogy and including the technologies and philosophy of the new dynamic anatomy under way on the continent. In this paper, we analyze the grantholders listed in the JAE archives and the studies that they published by them. We conclude that the utilization of these grants played an important role in promoting the international exchange necessary for the reform of a science in crisis, with anatomical pedagogy and technology being the major protagonists of this renewal.