The History of the Department

The first professor of Elements of Public Hygiene in the School of Medicine of Granada was Mariano López Mateos (1802-1863), former head of the department of Anatomy, who was also responsible for introducing cell theory (according to the formulation by Theodor Schwann) in our country. This course was taught afterward by Aureliano Maestre de San Juan (1828-1890), another outstanding anatomist and histologist, the mentor of Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Between 1869 and 1874, the department was temporarily chaired by Rafael Rodríguez Méndez of Granada, one of the first professional hygienists in our country, having carried out most of his work at the University of Barcelona.

Bust del Prof. Salvat A later professor also born in Granada and deserving mention is Rafael Branchat y Vime-Prada, who imparted the subject Private and Public Hygiene at the School of Medicine from 1878 to his death in 1897. During this period another noteworthy presence was that of Prof. Albert Neisser, who in 1879 discovered the pathogen of gonorrhea. Professor Branchat, as the Chair in Hygiene, elaborated the plan for potable water supply in the city of Granada, as well as a rigorous study about the evacuation of wastewater. Prof. Branchat also founded the Municipal Institute of Vaccination (1883), to fight above all against smallpox.

After Branchat, up to the 1940´s the subject was taught by Andrés López Prior, Head of Health, and then by Antonio Salvat Navarro. This professor held the departmental chair in Granada from 1942 to 1949, and wrote a magnificent Treaty of Hygiene in two volumes, with a prologue by Felipe Hauser, a distinguished Hygienist from Madrid.

In posterior years, the department was chaired by Gonzalo Piédrola Gil during the academic year 1958-59, and Rafael Ibáñez González, Chair from 1959 to 1971 as well as Head of the Provincial Directorate of Health, and who together with Eduardo Ortiz de Landázuri helped erradicate goiter in endemic zones such as La Alpujarra. In 1971 the open Chair went to José María Peco Malagón, until 1973; in that year the department Chair of Microbiology, Parasitology and Preventive Medicine was occupied by Gonzalo Piédrola Angulo.

According to the study plan of Pharmacy in the year 1900, Public Hygiene was added as a subject to be taken at the School of Medicine, a situation that became stable through successive study plans. In the study plan of Pharmacy of 1973 the subject was renamed Hygiene and Environmental Health, and in 1983 the first position of Assistant Professor was specifically ascribed to Pharmacy for teaching this subject. At present, the subject is called Public Health and is included in the different degree studies of the School of Pharmacy.

Plate Prof. Galvez Not until the arrival of Prof. D. Ramón Gálvez Vargas did the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health become established as we know it today. Prof. Gálvez became the first director of the Department, and in 1981 was named Chair of Preventive and Social Medicine of the University of Granada. In view of the 1984 Norms for the creation of Areas and Departments, the Area of Preventive Medicine and Public Health came under the multidisciplinary department of Legal Medicine, Psychiatry and Public Health, constituted on March 23, 1987. The University Faculty Meeting of December 14, 1992 approved constitution of the present Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, responsible for teaching, in the framework of the University of Granada, the Area of Preventive Medicine and Public Health.