Date of appointment: 27 september 1989.
By proposal of: Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry.
Date of investiture: 2 april 1990.
Sponsor: Dr. Francisco J. Morales Olivas and Dr. Mª José Baguena Cervellera.
Pedro Laín Entralgo was born in Teruel in 1908. Doctor, historian, essayist and philosopher.
He studied his specialty in Zaragoza, Valencia and Madrid, focusing on psychiatry.
In 1941 he acceded to the chair of History of Medicine at the University of Madrid, of which he was also rector. He was invested as an honorary doctor by the universities of San Marcos de Lima and Toulouse, and an honorary professor at the National University of Santiago de Chile.
In 1989 he received the Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in recognition of his long career as a researcher in the field of the history of medicine and his work in various fields of thought.
He directed the Arnaldo de Vilanova Institute and the Asclepio magazine, of the Superior Council of Scientific Research. He was also a member of the Royal Academies of History and National Medicine, of the Royal Society of London, of the Hispanic Society of America, of the National Medicine of Buenos Aires and of the Academy of the History of Medicine, among others.
Featured publications:
Medicine and history, 1941
Menéndez Pelayo, 1944
Spain as a problem, 1949
Great doctors, 1961
Marañón and the sick person, 1962
Our Cajal, 1967
The doctor and the patient, 1969
Current medicine, 1973
Discharge of conscience, 1975
History of medicine, 1978