[The foundations and objectives of a health campaign: the fight against cancer in Catalonia before the Civil War].

In this article we shall analyse the configuration of the process through which cancer ist characterised as a social problem during the first third of this century, taking Catalonia as an example. We shall study both the scientific aspects of this process as well as the socio-economic and ideological ones, and shall analyse the birth and crisis of some of the institutional projects which were cut short by the war.