The contributions of Drs. Manuel and Francisco Beca to Chilean psychiatry

The Chilean psychiatrists, Manuel and Francisco Beca, father and son, who l ived at the turn of the XIX century and in the first half of the XX respect ively, dedicated their lives to the care of mental patients and to the teac hing of psychiatry, contributing in their own way and time to the developme nt of the speciality in Chile. Manuel Beca, a clinician, published the firs t mental patient statistics and Francisco, an academic, became professor of Psychiatry at the Catholic University. Altough they dedicated themselves t o different fields in the area of mental health, such as clinical research and teaching, both have outstanding merits to become a part of the historic al memory of Chilean psychiatry.