[Hospitals in the New Spain during the Independence war]

In 1810 Mexico had more than a hundred hospitals scattered throughout its wide territory. Some buildings were big with the possibility to accept 600 patients or more, and some very small, as those seen in Arizpe, Sonora, or the small missions in Michoacan or la Sierra Gorda where only three or four patients could be placed. Their origins were diverse; some of them were founded by eminent or pious men like Cortés, Zumárraga, Pedro López, Núñez de Haro or Alcalde; others by religious orders and laboral guilds, some were only for the military. All of them knew good and bad eras, and being the year 1810 bad one. The political and economical crisis, derived from the Napoleonic wars and the invasion of Spain and the Independence war in Mexico affected strongly the hospitals management and function. Also the changes in medical science development and patients attention made most of them outdated.