DIRECTORS, PHYSICIANS AND SHAREHOLDERS ACTORS AND TRAJECTORIES AMONGST THERMAL CURE. CHILEAN ANDES, 1860-1920

This article studies the management of Andes thermal spas between 1860 and 1920. It analyzes three types of thermal managements throughout the figure of managers, physicians, and shareholders, in order to relate their profiles with the transformations that the thermal system, and in general the therapeutics, show over time. Through them, it explores the multidimensional character of thermal hydrotherapy and its flexibility to operate, combine and move as a proposal between different medical, vacation and industrial identities. Thermalism has been little studied as a cultural proposal in the Latin American context, even though its analysis is important for understanding the therapeutic context of the turn of the century and the changes it faces. Through the study of some the Chilean central spas authorities, this text shows how these actors, which were the main promoters of the therapeutic model, became one of its main forces of change, with the promotion of dynamics that began to exceed its initial therapeutic destination.