La Sociedad Antropológica Española de 1865

Laburpena

After the appearance of the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1859, the London Society emerged in 1863 and the Madrid Society in 1865. The latter received the name of the Spanish Anthropological Society and was founded by Pedro González de Velasco, Matías Nieto Serrano, Francisco Delgado Jugo, Ramón Torres Muñoz, Manuel María Galdo, Juan Vilanova, Sandalio de Pereda y José Ametller. Most of the members were physicians, which gives an idea of the interest aroused in these professionals by the new discipline. Although it also had members with philosophical or philological training. The purpose of the Society's activity was the study of the Natural History of man and the sciences that are related to it, and for this reason it took precautions to keep its discussions within the scientific field. In the early years, this activity was very scarce, mainly due to the political and religious pressures it receives due to its discussions of topics such as evolution and the origin of man. There are two breaks in the activity of the Society. One in 1867 and one in 1870 and 1871. The Society did not have a scientific and academic consolidation in the Spanish panorama and there are several causes that can explain it. From an unstable political period, the absence of a specific means of communication (the Revista de Antropología hat only published 7 issues in 1874) or perhaps it was the biographical vicissitudes of its main supporter, Dr. Velasco.