Education: Complutense University of Madrid (1930–1941), University of Valencia (1927–1930)

He was a Spanish essayist and physician. A prolific author, he is considered the initiator and foremost representative of the history of medicine in Spain. He pursued his medical studies in Zaragoza, Valencia, and Madrid, specializing in psychiatry. A Falangist militant, at the end of the Spanish Civil War he founded the journal Escorial with D. Ridruejo. After publishing his first volume of essays, *Medicina e historia* (1941), he was appointed to the Chair of History of Medicine at the University of Madrid, where he also served as rector.

A frequent lecturer and contributor to newspapers and magazines, his work spanned various areas. On the one hand, he addressed topics related to his discipline in books such as Anthropology in the Work of Fray Luis de Granada* (1946), Introduction to the Study of Psychosomatic Pathology (1950), and The Doctor-Patient Relationship: History and Theory (1964), in which he reflected philosophically on the means and ends of medicine. The seven volumes of *Universal History of Medicine* (1969-1975), a collaborative work published under his direction, also belong to this field.

But the author transcended the boundaries of his profession to engage in the historical analysis of Spanish culture with a desire for understanding and reconciliation, consistent with his rejection of Falangist ideology. This interest manifested itself in the essays *Menéndez Pelayo: History of Intellectual Problems* (1944), The Generation of ’98 (1945), and Spain as a Problem (1957).

On the occasion of his induction into the Royal Spanish Academy (1954), he delivered a speech entitled “Memory and Hope (Saint Augustine, Saint John of the Cross, Machado, and Unamuno),” whose central theses were compiled in his first fully philosophical work, “Waiting and Hope: History and Theory of Human Expectation” (1956). Other notable texts include “The Enterprise of Being Human” (1958), “Theory and Reality of the Other” (1961), “Gregorio Marañón: Life, Work, and Person” (1969), the memoir “Discharge of Conscience” (1976), “Body and Soul” (1991), “Hope in Times of Crisis” (1994), and “Idea of ​​Man” (1996).

Source: Fernández, Tomás and Tamaro, Elena. “Biography of Pedro Laín Entralgo.” In Biografías y Vidas. The online biographical encyclopedia [Internet]. Barcelona, ​​Spain, 2004.