At the National Exhibition of 1892, history painting was definitively superseded by social realism. This was largely due to the prestige of this picture, which won the first medal in Madrid after previously obtaining the same distinction at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris. Directly influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage, Jiménez Aranda paints an attractive naturalist scene with no trace of the customary epic of large-format works. Naturalist painters were especially interested in observing everyday activities, including scientific ones, whose depiction they saw as fulfilling their aesthetic ideals. Once responsibility for health care was in civil rather than religious hands, medical subjects took on a central role in innovative artistic practices.