The Prince of Asturias Foundation
Pedro Laín Entralgo
Founder of a new evaluation of Human and Social Sciences in the training of doctors, he is considered by many as the most outstanding Spanish medical researcher and humanist of the 20th century.
Pedro Laín Entralgo was born in Urrea de Gaén, Teruel, in 1908. He studied in Soria, Teruel and Pamplona and at the universities of Zaragoza, Valencia and Madrid. Graduating in Chemistry, with an extraordinary prize, in 1927, and with a First in Medicine and Surgery, he expanded his studies at the psychiatric clinic of Vienna.
He worked as a doctor in the Valencia provincial asylum, and in 1939 began lecturing in the subject of Experimental Psychology at the University of Madrid, which he would teach until 1941. In 1940 he founded the journal "Escorial" with Ridruejo and Marichalar. Two years later he obtained the chair of History of Medicine at the University of Madrid, from which he would retire after thirty-five years intense work.
He has been a numerary member of the Royal National Academy of Medicine since 1946. In 1952 he was appointed as rector of the University of Madrid by the then Minister of Education, Joaquín Ruíz Giménez, but he resigned four years later as a consequence of the student disturbances which led to Tierno Galván, García Calvo and López Aranguren being removed from their chairs.
In 1964 he entered the Royal Academy of History. In 1982 and 1987 he chaired the Royal Spanish Academy of the Spanish Language.
Founder and director of the Arnau de Vilanova Institute for History of Medicine, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research, and of the journal "Archivo Iberoamericano de la Historia de la Medicina y Antropología Médica", he is an honourary professor of the National University of Santiago de Compostela, and doctor "honoris causa" of the universities of San Marcos (Lima), Toulouse (France), Zaragoza and Valencia. He likewise belongs to the "Akademie der Wissenschften" (Heidelberg), "Academia Leopoldina" (Halle), "Académie Internacionale d´Histoire des Sciences", of the Hispanic Society of America and of the Royal Society of London.
Pedro Laín has published numerous important works, among them the "Historia universal de la Medicina". As an essayist he has contributed to outstanding publications. He has worked as a theatre critic for the "Gaceta Ilustrada", which earned him the National Theatre Prize in the season 1970-71. he has also been awarded the Montaigne Prize in recognition of his work as a doctor and an essayist.
He has written about matters of anthropology and medical history, and also works of a literary and historical nature. Outstanding examples of his work, of the first type, are: "Medicina e Historia" (1941), "La antropolgía de la obra de Fray Luis de Granada" (1946), "Grandes médicos" (1961), "Marañón y el enfermo" (1962), "Nuestro Cajal" (1967), "El médico y el enfermo" (1969), "Gregorio Marañón. Vida y obra" (1969), "La medicina actual" (1973) or "Historia de la Medicina" (1978). Of his literary-historical works, one may mention "Menéndez Pelayo" (1944), "España como problema" (1949) or "Descargo de conciencia" (1975).
Economic Culture Fund (Fondo de Cultura Económica)
This Mexican business institution has carried out exemplary work in the expansion of thought and culture throughout the Latin-American world, making a decisive contribution to mutual understanding between nations and providing them with a solid cultural and scientific legacy and a forum free from ideology.
The Economic Culture Fund ("Fondo de Cultura Económica" - FCE) publishers was founded in Mexico on the 13th September 1934 by the Mexican government, with the participation of outstanding intellectuals who were concerned about the diffusion of culture in the country. The intellectuals Daniel Cossío Villegas, Emidgio Martínez Adame, Jesus Silva Herzog, Eduardo Villaseñor and Gonzalo Robles formed part of the first board of management of the institution.
The first works published by the Fund, in 1935, were "The Silver Dollar" by William P. Shea, with an introduction by the Mexican Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros and translation by the poet Salvador Novo, and "Karl Marx", by Harold J. Laski, translated by Antonio Casal Real. The Economic Culture Fund was born with the idea of translating and publishing economic works, but it soon expanded its field of publishing to other sciences such as sociology, psychology, and philosophy, history, politics and law, among other subjects. The works published by the FCE include subjects related to all the sciences, as well as literary anthologies of outstanding authors.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, the Fund published, in 1984, the "Zoológico fantástico" by the Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges, in an edition illustrated by the Mexican painter Francisco Toledo.
The publishers has branches in Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Spain, countries in which all its publications have direct distribution. In the rest of Latin America and in other countries the sales system is the usual one, through the established commercial channels.
The Economic Culture Fund has been an open forum for debate for any ideology, which has gained it recognition form writers and publishers all over the world. The successive directors of the institution have played an outstanding role in obtaining this international prestige. The Mexicans Salvador Azuela, Antonio Carrillo Flores, Francisco Javier Alejo and José Luis Martínez, as well as the aforementioned Cossío, Martínez Adame, Silva Herzog, Villaseñor and Gonzalo Robles, and the Argentinean Arnaldo Orfila, have been those in charge of "governing" the publishers and strengthening its character as a broadcaster of culture within criteria open to the participation of every point of view.
The great Mexican writers have occupied an important place in the Fund´s publications, without this meaning a lack of attention to intellectuals from the rest of the world. In more than half a century of work, the FCE has published more than 3,000 titles and 2,500 reprints, which means a total print run of more than 35 million books.
The Economic Culture Fund has twenty-five collections and undertakes joint editions with institutions such as the College of Mexico or the Autonomous National University of Mexico.
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