In May 1880, a royal decree signed by the Minister of the Interior, F. Romero Robledo, created the Institute of Operative Therapy under the gratuitous direction of Dr. Federico Rubio y Gali. Although it was located at the Hospital de la Princesa of Madrid, it was not dependent on the Institutions of Charity. According to the royal decree, major surgical procedures and specialized operative techniques would be performed at this Institute. Thus, the first teaching hospital was created in Spain, with operating rooms, dispensaries and polyclinics dedicated primarily to surgical specialties which were established at the Institute after 1880. The Institute's section for Diseases of the Urinary Tract, created in October 1885, was entrusted to the Madrid citizen Enrique Suender Rodríguez (1829-1897), the leading specialist in urology in our country at that time (his 100th death anniversary was commemorated last year) and whose assistant was Luis González Bravo y Serrano.