ABSTRACT
The organisation of an efficient military health service was one of the major challenges that Italian military healthcare had to face during the First World War. The creation of the neuropsychiatric service was the first step towards the total mobilisation of the Italian psychiatric profession. The creation of the psychiatric facilities so close to the front line was considered very useful to save precious time for the healthcare. The control of time and space was a well-known way for psychiatrists to exercise power: it was used for the patients' recovery and to protect both society and those who were ill from reciprocal negative influences. In the psychiatric science of the early twentieth century, controlling the space and time of people with mental problems were fundamental elements of therapy. Military psychiatry was a discipline based on the elimination of 'not standard people', and it was not expected that the army physician would do more than attest a mental defect.
