The renowned Catalan ophthalmologist Joaquín Barraquer Moner (1927-2016) is the protagonist of the 15th installment of the series that the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) dedicates to the most notable academicians of its centenary history. 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 academics, 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.
Son of Ignacio Barraquer Barraquer, founder of the Barraquer Clinic in 1941 and grandson of the first professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Barcelona, José Antonio Barraquer Roviralta, the academician decided to follow his family career and studied Medicine at the University of Barcelona, where he graduated in 1951. From there he devoted to research and took a doctorate up to three times at the Complutense University of Madrid (1955), the University of Guayaquil (1957) and the National University of Colombia in Bogota (1965). The most prominent areas of his care and scientific work were cornea transplants and cataract surgery, glaucoma and myopia. In all cases with significant advances in techniques, surgical procedures and even clinical material. In 1970 he was appointed professor of Ocular Surgery at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Great promoter of the Barraquer Clinic, now called Barraquer Ophthalmology Center, he also launched the Barraquer University Institute, the Barraquer Foundation and the Eye Bank for Blindness Treatments. His work in research and medicine led him to be recognized with the Grand Cross of the Spanish Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise, the Cross of Saint George of the Catalan Government and the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Health, among other first level awards. He entered as academician of honor in the RAED during the 1987-1988 academic year with the speech “Cirugía de la catarata y lentes intraoculares” (Cataract surgery and intraocular lenses), an unpublished work that the Royal Academy treasures with zeal.
His son, Rafael Ignacio Barraquer Compte, current president and director of Teaching at the Barraquer Institute and medical director of the Barraquer Ophthalmology Center, has followed his family career and is full academician of the Royal European Academy of Doctors.
