Luis

DYNAMIS. Acta Hisp. Med. Sci. Hist. Illus. 2001, 21, 453-455. Luis ROGER FRENCH (*) ANDREW CUNNINGHAM (**) BIBLID [0211-9536(2001) 21; 453-455] Fecha de aceptación: junio de 2001 We in the Cambridge Wellcome Unit were privileged to enjoy and profit from a special academic, research and personal relationship with Luis for over fifteen years. It was the most important of the relationships we built up with overseas scholars in the history of medicine, and extremely productive for both parties. Those who knew Luis will also appreciate that it was highly enjoyable as well. We believe that he valued the academic and personal relationship with us and our Unit as highly. Such mutually beneficial and mutually productive relations are rare in the academic world. Scholarly collaboration was a form of work that Luis always favoured, and our relationship with him provided many occasions to work together. Perhaps the most important such events were the two invitation-only international conferences which we arranged. The first was held in the C.S.I.C. in Barcelona in 1989, the second in the Wellcome Unit in Cambridge in 1992. The academic programmes were arranged jointly, and the local arrangements in Barcelona were made by Luis, those in Cambridge by us. The acknowledgements Luis made in the volume (*) The University Lecturer in the History of Medicine. Department of History and Philosophy of Science. University of Cambridge. Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, England. (**) Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in History of Medicine. Department of History and Philosophy of Science. University of Cambridge. Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH, England. 454 ROGER FRENCH & ANDREW CUNNINGHAM DYNAMIS. Acta Hisp. Med. Sci. Hist. Illus. 2001, 21, 453-455. which resulted from the first conference, Practical Medicine from Salerno to the Black Death (Cambridge, 1994) indicate how hard he worked to make the Barcelona conference the great success it was. The academic quality of that conference can be seen in the resulting volume. But culturally and socially it lives vividly in our memories for the concerts and other visits that Luis included, and of course for the encounters with Luis himself. The second conference resulted in the volume Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease (Ashgate, 1998), and both these volumes were jointly edited. Medieval medicine was one of the areas which interested both of us, but it was the connection with Luis which contributed to us developing our interests in this period so much, and extending our own horizons to the history of medicine in the Iberian peninsula. A joint application to the British Council and the Spanish Ministry for Education, brought us an Acciones Integradas grant in 1991 for the initial work on a project on the Articella, and this paid for research visits for members of both units. Luis also made it possible for Roger French to be Visiting Professor at the Consejo in Barcelona that year. Luis was always very aware of the need to build careers and contacts for his students, and this has had, and continues to have, a great importance for us in Cambridge. Jon Arrizabalaga was first sent by Luis as a visitor to our Unit in Cambridge to learn English and become familiar with the British tradition of history of medicine, and the joint book by Jon, Roger French and John Henderson, The Great Pox (1997) was a long-term result of that first visit. Both of us have collaborated with Jon in other projects: Andrew Cunningham on a conference resulting in a book on Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe (1999), while for Roger French, the two international meetings associated with the Articella project, an Articella exhibition in Cambridge, and the resultant publications, all stem from this connection. Fernando Salmón and Montse Cabré have also spent considerable time with us in Cambridge, and their visits too have led to publications on themes of joint interest. The debt we all owe to Luis in developing the relationship between the members of his unit and ours is evident in the continuing fruitful scholarly collaborations between us and, above all, in the trust and friendliness which exists between us, which we feel sure will continue. 455 Luis García Ballester (1936-2000), in memoriam DYNAMIS. Acta Hisp. Med. Sci. Hist. Illus. 2001, 21, 453-455. Luis established the initial atmosphere of what has been a most happy coming-together of personalities, research programmes, history of medicine enthusiasms, and social encounters. Luis was a very gentle man, without any pomposity and with great charm. He was also very hospitable, and visiting him in Barcelona and Santander gave us an immediate feel for the life and Spain and the Latin mediterranean countries. Together with the utmost seriousness that Luis brought to his scholarly work, he was also one of the most entertaining and amusing of people in social contexts, which made him a delight to know. We were very proud of this association with an outstanding scholar. The relationship was so inspirational that when the two of us wrote a book together on the medieval period, we naturally dedicated it him, as a mark of our friendship and of his scholarly eminence.