The Academy of Medicine paid tribute last Tuesday to nine of its illustrious members who passed away in the last year. Among them was the globally renowned oncologist Josep Baselga. But, without intending to disparage any of the deceased academics, I would like to focus on the figure of Dr. Francesc Puchal, mainly because I had the honor of knowing him for the last 20 years and because I believe he is the most relevant wise man —yes, wise— with whom I have ever had a stable relationship.
Dr. Maria Àngels Calvo was in charge of reading his eulogy. It was a speech full of emotion, in which she highlighted Puchal's main contributions to animal nutrition and veterinary medicine in general. He was one of the first people in our country to receive a Fullbright scholarship to study in the United States. During his brilliant career, he dedicated himself to research and brought about important advances in his specialty. As a teacher, he was linked to several universities and in 1982 founded the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the UAB, of which he was the first dean. In the 60s he worked for several private companies and in 1968 he founded, without giving up academic activity, his own, ITPSA, currently present in more than 60 countries.
But for me, the best part of Dr. Calvo's speech was when she praised the facet that does not usually appear in CVs, which is the personal one. Puchal was a man devoted to his profession, but also to his family. And, above all, he was a very good person, and in this case it is not the typical attribute of a perfunctory obituary. He adopted me as a political nephew and he and tieta Montse became unconditional. They never missed any presentation of my books or a Sant Jordi signing.
On Tuesday, the tribute to the nine distinguished doctors took place in one of Barcelona's great unknown gems. It was held in the spectacular anatomical amphitheater preserved in the academy's headquarters, in the grounds of the old Hospital de la Santa Creu, in the heart of the Raval. It is an 18th-century piece unique in Europe, from when the building housed the College of Surgery, which would later become the Faculty of Medicine.
In the center of the room, the marble table still remains where anonymous cadavers, whose bodies no one claimed and whose ultimate destiny was the training of future surgeons, were dissected for years. These surgeons were distributed around the amphitheater in the same way that those of us who attended the event as an audience did on Tuesday. In the past, there were some wealthy people who paid to satisfy their morbid curiosity and discreetly observed from an upper circular balcony.
The building became the headquarters of the Academy of Medicine in 1929, after distinguished teachers had passed through the faculty and it had moved to Casanova Street, next to the Clínic. Nobel laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who taught in the amphitheater for five years, was a professor at the old faculty. But before that, some of its promoters in 1764, such as Pere Virgili, left their mark on the College of Surgery. Trained in his youth as a barber, when barbers also practiced medical cures in addition to cutting hair and shaving. Virgili later trained as a surgeon and was the creator of the now admired anatomical amphitheater. Antoni de Gimbernat, one of the fathers of modern surgery in Spain, also belonged to the first era.
Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming, discoverer of penicillin, also visited the academy in 1948. He was given a solemn reception in the amphitheater and was named an honorary academician. Also passed through the institution, among others, the mayor of Barcelona Bartolomeu Robert, known as Doctor Robert, and Moisès Broggi, who stood out as a surgeon of the International Brigades during the Civil War, for which he was repressed by Francoism.
Currently, the institution's officials strive to open it to the public and make its history known. Among other activities, guided tours are organized that allow visitors to discover the amphitheater and the rest of the historic headquarters.
A visit to the academy with Francesc Puchal always remained pending. It took a while, but in the end, we were able to do it somehow on Tuesday.