Yesterday, September 29, 2022, Dr. Josep Danon Bretos (Barcelona, 1927\u20132022) passed away. He served as head of the Uriach Foundation 1838 from 1969 until 2010.<\/p>\n
The Board of Trustees and the technical team of the Uriach Foundation wish to express their deepest sorrow at the loss of an exemplary collaborator, a distinguished member of the academic community in our country, and a person of extraordinary human quality.<\/p>\n
Graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Barcelona in 1951, he later specialized in Pediatrics and Childcare, as well as in Occupational Medicine and Sports Medicine. With his thesis on the General Hospital of Santa Cruz in Barcelona, he obtained his doctorate cum laude in 1967.<\/p>\n
Alongside his extensive work as a family physician, his passion was teaching. From 1979 he served as Associate Professor of the History of Medicine at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, becoming Full Professor in 1986 in the field of the History of Science until his retirement in 1997.<\/p>\n
As a result of his academic work, he built up an extensive collection of historical-medical bibliography and became a recognized authority in the history of medicine and health sciences, which led to his collaboration with Uriach in 1969. That same year, together with Dr. Joan Uriach Marsal, he founded the Center for the Documentation of the History of Medicine, the precursor of today\u2019s Uriach Foundation, established in 1989.<\/p>\n
His connection with the Uriach Foundation lasted until 2010. Thanks to his tireless work, the Foundation became a national benchmark in its field through the acquisition and cataloguing of an important collection of historical-medical materials, unprecedented in Spain, which would later form the Historical Library of Health Sciences. During his years as head of the Uriach Foundation, he was also one of the founders and director of the journal Medicina e Historia and one of the organizers of the Uriach Prize in the History of Medicine, first awarded in 1970.<\/p>\n
Josep Danon received several national and international awards in the history of medicine. He was a member of the board of the Spanish Society of Medicine and served as Secretary General of the XXXVII International Congress on the History of Medicine held in Barcelona in 1980, also participating in numerous national and international congresses.<\/p>\n
In addition to his many articles in Medicina e Historia and his collaborations in other publications, such as the Bolet\u00edn Informativo de la Academia de Ciencias M\u00e9dicas de Catalu\u00f1a or Cuadernos de Historia de la Medicina Espa\u00f1ola, he authored other works: Aportaci\u00f3n al estudio social de la medicina en Catalu\u00f1a 1768\u20131823 (1975), Visi\u00f3n hist\u00f3rica del Hospital General de la Santa Cruz de Barcelona (1978), El Hospital-Asilo de Granollers (1986), and Cat\u00e1logo de la biblioteca hist\u00f3rica de la Fundaci\u00f3n Uriach (1493\u20131950) (1996). He also coordinated the work La ense\u00f1anza de la medicina en la universidad espa\u00f1ola (1998\u20132000) and was responsible for the facsimile edition of Francisco Piguillem\u2019s La vacuna en Espa\u00f1a o en Cartas Familiares sobre esta nueva inoculaci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n