Mariano Esteban Gil (Valencia, 1904-Valencia, 1977) studied the degree at the Faculty of Medicine in Valencia, where he graduated in 1927. A year later he read his doctoral thesis “Contribución al estudio de la reacción de Farhaeus y sus resultados en crenología”, after what he completed his formation along with the doctor Abilio García Barón in the service for digestive diseases of the Casa de Salud Valdecilla in Santader. Similarly, he trained in Paris, in the hospitals of the Salpetrière, Hôtel Dieu and Vaugirard.

When he came back to Valencia, he got a work placement as a doctor of the Cuerpo Municipal de Beneficencia by examination and was a teacher assistant in the Chair of Medical Pathology A of the Faculty of Medicine in Valencia directed by Fernando Rodríguez Fornos, job position that he maintained in 1939 with José Almela Guillén and in 1953 with Manuel Valdés Ruiz. He received a Cajal grant from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

In 1956 he attained the leadership of the Gastroenterology Service of the Municipal Polyclinic Institute in Valencia and was part of the Health Municipal Council of the City Council. Later, he was Head of Chambers in the Digestive Service at the Hospital Provincial in Valencia. He held the presidency of the Valencian Society of Digestive Pathology between 1964 and 1966 and was founding member of the Spanish Society of Hepatology in 1967.

On 5 December 1972 he joined the Royal Academy of Medicine in Valencia with the speech entitled “Antecedentes islámicos de lla bromatología en el paí valenciano”, in which he highlighted that rice was used by the Arabics in patients suffering from the digestive system.

Among his most important publications are the study of the sideremi (iron presence in blood serum) in digestive diseases and the electrophoresis of the gastric juice.

The family of Mariano Esteban has donated his bibliographical and archival legacy to the Historiomèdica Library “Vicente Peset Llorca”, that has been added to the Trobes catalogue and everyone who is interested can consult it. There are more than 500 registers, including his medical archive, which comprises medical records, graphical material related to his work (radiographs, photographs) and drafts of the works he published.

Professors from the Department of the History of Science and Documentation María José Báguena and José Luis Fresquet have conducted a selection of the main materials from this donation which are exhibited in the López Piñero Institute for the History of Science and Medicine.