[en] In 1817, the creation in Spain of the ?Cuerpo de M?dicos Directores de Ba?os? was justified by the need to identify hydromineral remedies and to ensure their proper administration. The measure allowed this new group of experts the ability to choose where and how they wanted to play their new role. The plurality of approaches about spa functions leads to different interpretations about their physicians? role, either as promoters of the balneary industry or as an obstacle for the development of the touristic aspects of the business. This work will focus on the diversity of spas and the doctors that work there, their collective and individual interests and how both linked with business as far as their synergies and antagonisms. This analysis would be relevant in understanding the scientifi c and institutional framework as well as the development of an academic discourse around touristic and recreational aspects that stem from the use of the mineral waters. The medicalization of the mineral waters and the subsequent creation of the spa resort conferred an important role to the medical directors in this new industry, often in a real opposition to the economic interests of the owners, although at some points their interests overlapped. Chemical analyzes of water were among the activities they carried out, to which environmental studies were added in order to build medical topographies of the spa resort area. Both activities claimed to have had an effect on health tourism, convinced of the different benefits and specificity of every spa resort. The consequence was that this kind of scientific literature linked healing with environmental conditions that transcended the actual value of water. Halfway between the functions of propaganda and control, between medicalization and tourism, these two groups ?bath owners and medical directors- staged a permanent conflict that became known as ?the balneary freedom? which led to the Cuerpo?s suppression in 1932 and its replacement ?after the Civil War? by an inspectorate of bathing establishments.

[es] En 1817, la creaci?n del Cuerpo de M?dicos Directores de Ba?os se justific? por la necesidad de conocer el remedio hidromineral y garantizar una correcta administraci?n del mismo. Esta medida conced?a a este nuevo colectivo de expertos poder elegir el lugar en que quer?an desempe?ar su funci?n. La medicalizaci?n de los ba?os y la subsiguiente creaci?n del balneario supusieron que los m?dicos directores tuviesen un relevante papel en el funcionamiento de esta nueva industria, a menudo contrario a los intereses econ?micos de los propietarios, aunque en algunos puntos coincidentes. Los an?lisis qu?micos de las aguas fueron una de sus actividades desarrolladas, a las que se unir?an las del estudio del medio para constituir topograf?as m?dicas balnearias, una literatura cient?fica que acabar?a por avalar que la curaci?n se vinculaba a condiciones ambientales que trascend?an el propio valor del agua. A medio camino entre las funciones de propaganda y control, entre la medicalizaci?n y el turismo, estos dos colectivos protagonizaron una permanente contienda que fue conocida como ?la libertad balnearia? y hubo de saldarse con la supresi?n del cuerpo en 1932 y su sustituci?n, tras la Guerra Civil, por un cuerpo de inspectores de establecimientos balnearios.