Assembling armed corps: Physician Ideology of masculinity in the barracks in the early twentieth century

Abstract

The Spanish army from late 19th century took advantage of the gradual universalization of military service. Thanks to this constant influx of soldiers, commanders would be able to implement a paternalistic system of rewards and punishments that would allow them to transform the individual characteristics of each candidate in them to be adapted to the stereotype of the man citizen. In this process, the branch of Military Health collaborated studying and cataloging all the fifths which were to enter the barracks. Besides army health included in the system of rewards and punishments bourgeois hygienic precepts that soldiers should continue. Compliance with these requirements was to measure the adequacy of each soldier stereotype of the military citizen who was managing the army.