Dr. Carlos Jiménez Díaz
Fifth installment of the series that the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) dedicates to the most notable academicians of its centennial history, this time to another of his illustrious characters: the renowned cardiologist and remembered teacher Carlos Jiménez Díaz (1898 -1967), founder of the Jiménez Díaz Universitary Hospital Foundation in Madrid, considered one of the most important Spanish doctors of all time. Another of the great figures of science and thought that have been part of the RAED and that the current Government Board wants to thank, acknowledge and claim, in the conviction that those who have no memory, have no future. The selection of these selected academicians, from all fields of knowledge, is the result of research carried out for the publication of the “Book of the Centenary” of the Royal Academy, published three years ago. Personalities that transcend their historical context to appear today as referents of knowledge.
Still relevant today in fields as diverse as nephropathies, nutrition, intestinal pathologies, asthma, allergic diseases and, logically, heart disease, Jiménez Díaz reformed the Spanish medicine of the 20s, 30s and 40s of the last century importing European models after studying in Germany, the United Kingdom and France and joining training, attention and research inseparably. First in Seville and then in Madrid.
His activity at the then Academy of Doctors of the University District of Barcelona is already collected in the Annals of the institution that review the papers presented between 1945 and 1962, and his admission as academician of honor is collected in 1966, a year before his unexpected death. Among the speeches that the Royal Academy keeps with zeal is his “Significación biológica de algunos mitos clásicos” (Biological significance of some classical myths).
Among his medical bibliography are his “Lecciones de patología médica” (Lessons in medical pathology) (1934-52), “Problemas de la patología interna” (Problems of internal pathology) (1944 and 1953), “El asma y procesos afines” (Asthma and related processes) (1953) and “El médico explorando a su enfermo” (The doctor exploring his patient) (1954), in addition to his numerous scientific articles. He founded the “Revista Clínica Española” in 1940, a publication that is still being edited, and in 1948 he began the edition of the “Bulletin of the Institute for Medical Research”. His tireless work for health earned him the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise, the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabel the Catholic and the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Health.
