When Rodriguez Pinilla retired in 1931, Antonia Martínez Casado became the professor in charge of the chair. The temporary suppression of the corps, the disappearance of the Anales and the Civil War chained serious setbacks for hydrology and a consequent decline. The vulnerability of the department led to the attempt to takeover the discipline by Physical Therapy in 1939 and the need for support from other specialties. The purge of Martinez Casado and her substitution by Jose de San Román led to continuity at first but the opposition to the chair in 1941 ended up leaving the chair vacant. Two years later an Advisory Board of Spas and mineral medicinal waters was created in which the representation was diversified, the spas were classified by their therapeutic benefits and a body of Medical Inspectors of Spa Facilities was created. The latter gave strength to the Board and turned it into a hostile body to the chair as reflected in Juan de Dios Garcia Ayuso's (board secretary) pages in Boletín Español de Hidrología Médica y Climatología (The Spanish Journal of Medical Hydrology and Climatology).