How Spain’s urology was shaped by its empire
Spain has greatly contributed to the field of urology, through its scholars, surgeons and innovators, the audience learned at the EAU History Office’s Special Session on Friday afternoon.
Particularly striking is the role that Spain’s former empire played in the development of Spanish urology: from previously unknown diseases and herbs that reached Spain from the New World to the Latin-American urologists who trained and worked in Spain, reaching great new heights. The tale of Spanish urology is inextricably linked with Spain’s history of overseas conquest.
The EAU History Office typically organises a session at every EAU Annual Congress highlighting the history of urology in the host country. Last year saw an extensive session on Danish urology, and in 2017 the History Office collaborated with BAUS in London. This year, the session was chaired by EAU History Office Chairman Prof. Philip Van Kerrebroeck (NL) and Dr. Luis Fariña-Péres (ES).
Renaissance Spain and Urology
Prof. Remigio Vela Navarette (ES) spoke about the birth of urology in renaissance Europe, in particular the Spanish contributions in the 16th century. Vela Navarette felt that Spanish achievements in early urology have been historically overlooked, for instance in Ernest Desnos’s influential History of Urology (1914), which makes no mention at all of Spanish developments in the field. In the discussion that followed his presentation, he attributed this to a climate of French nationalism surrounding the First World War.
One Spanish renaissance ‘proto-urologist’ is Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564), the so-called ‘prince of anatomy’ and personal doctor of Charles V and Philip II. Several Spanish anatomists were active in Paris at the time. A lesser-known contemporary of Vesalius was Andres Laguna (1499-1559), author of Anatomical Method (1535). This work describes horseshoe kidney and ileocecal valve. Juan Valverde de Amusco (c 1525-1587 published anatomical work in Rome in 1556. His illustrations (and even a portrait painting of him) are often confused with Vesalius. Valverde described the prostate as a “spherical mass of meat”.
Over a period of several decades in the 16th and 17th centuries, descriptions can be found in Spanish medical sources of prostatism, stone treatment, and particularly and uniquely, New World remedies. Spanish doctors and scientists studied chocolate, cacao and cantarida (“Spanish fly”) as aphrodisiacs.
The New World also brought (urological) disease, and Spanish doctors pioneered the description and treatment of syphilis, which originated in Hispaniola and reached Europe through Barcelona(!) and Naples.
Spanish innovators
Prof. Javier Angulo Cuesta (ES) explored the life of renowned Cuban-born urologist Joaquín María Albarrán (1860-1912), particularly how he was influenced by Spain, and how in turn he impacted Spanish urology. Albarran was orphaned at an early age and taken to Spain for his studies. After becoming one of Europe’s foremost urologists, he influenced dozens of followers in the Spanish and French medical world.
Dr. José Maria Gil-Vernet Sedo (ES) spoke on his grandfather Salvador’s work in the 1940s, particularly his publication of Patologia Urogenital (1944), a hugely influential and beautifully illustrated volume. The role of the medical illustrator (particularly with regard to Spanish urology) is further highlighted in Dr. Luis Farina’s chapter in De Historia Urologiae Europaeae Vol. 26, available for all EAU members at the Membership booth from Saturday morning.