[Between the consulting room and the asylum, reflections on end of the century Spanish psychiatry].

Psychiatry and nerurology began to converge as the 19th century advanced and the concept or mental illness was increasingly seen as the result of lesions appearing in the nervous system. The reasons for this convergence are to be found in very different areas, in the development of neurology, both in morphological and physiological findings and in the respective pathologies, and in the changes in psychiatric observation. These changes meant a longer and more careful analysis of the illness, together with the appearance of new syndromes and better understanding of those already know. The belated construction of large asylums, with care and maintenance problems, also facilitated these changes. The close links between psychiatry and legal medicine in countries such as France and Spain also made for mental illness coming closer to the autopsy room.