At the end of the nineteenth century: psychiatry, nurses and their actions (1883)

Abstract

[Excerpt] Introduction In 1883 it was inaugurated the first psychiatric hospital built in portuguese lands, the Hospital de Alienados do Conde de Ferreira, under administration of Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto, responding to the testamentary dispositions of Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos, Count of Ferreira. In 1848 was established the Hospital de Rilhafoles, a psychiatric hospital, which building was adapted from an old convent, and the patients who were at Hospital de S. José were transferred to this structure. This hospital, at the time, was the only specific structure of assistance for people with mental disorders, but it was quickly overcrowded with people from different parts of the country.