The Most Famous

PHYSICIANS from Spain

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This page contains a list of the greatest Spanish Physicians. The pantheon dataset contains 726 Physicians, 12 of which were born in Spain. This makes Spain the birth place of the 11th most number of Physicians behind Switzerland, and Japan.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Spanish Physicians of all time. This list of famous Spanish Physicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Spanish Physicians.

Photo of Michael Servetus

1. Michael Servetus (1509 - 1553)

With an HPI of 73.61, Michael Servetus is the most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 59 different languages on wikipedia.

Michael Servetus (; Spanish: Miguel Servet; French: Michel Servet; also known as Michel Servetus, Miguel de Villanueva, Revés, or Michel de Villeneuve; 29 September 1509 or 1511 – 27 October 1553) was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist. He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in Christianismi Restitutio (1553). He was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, translation, poetry, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages. He is renowned in the history of several of these fields, particularly medicine. His work on the circulation of blood and his observations on pulmonary circulation were particularly important. He participated in the Protestant Reformation, and later rejected the Trinity doctrine and mainstream Catholic Christology. After being condemned by Catholic authorities in France, he fled to Calvinist Geneva where he was denounced by John Calvin himself and burned at the stake for heresy by order of the city's governing council.

Photo of Al-Zahrawi

2. Al-Zahrawi (936 - 1013)

With an HPI of 69.44, Al-Zahrawi is the 2nd most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 45 different languages.

Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-'Abbās al-Zahrāwī al-Ansari (Arabic: أبو القاسم خلف بن العباس الزهراوي;‎ c. 936–1013), popularly known as al-Zahrawi (الزهراوي), Latinised as Albucasis or Abulcasis (from Arabic Abū al-Qāsim), was an Arab physician, surgeon and chemist from al-Andalus. He is considered one of the greatest surgeons of the Middle Ages. Al-Zahrawi's principal work is the Kitab al-Tasrif, a thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical practices. The surgery chapter of this work was later translated into Latin, attaining popularity and becoming the standard textbook in Europe for the next five hundred years. Al-Zahrawi's pioneering contributions to the field of surgical procedures and instruments had an enormous impact in the East and West well into the modern period, where some of his discoveries are still applied in medicine to this day. He pioneered the use of catgut for internal stitches, and his surgical instruments are still used today to treat people. He was the first physician to identify the hereditary nature of haemophilia and describe an abdominal pregnancy, a subtype of ectopic pregnancy that in those days was a fatal affliction, and was first to discover the root cause of paralysis. He also developed surgical devices for Caesarean sections and cataract surgeries.

Photo of Ibn Zuhr

3. Ibn Zuhr (1091 - 1162)

With an HPI of 62.48, Ibn Zuhr is the 3rd most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Abū Marwān ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (Arabic: أبو مروان عبد الملك بن زهر), traditionally known by his Latinized name Avenzoar (; 1094–1162), was an Arab physician, surgeon, and poet. He was born at Seville in medieval Andalusia (present-day Spain), was a contemporary of Averroes and Ibn Tufail, and was the most well-regarded physician of his era. He was particularly known for his emphasis on a more rational, empiric basis of medicine. His major work, Al-Taysīr fil-Mudāwāt wal-Tadbīr ("Book of Simplification Concerning Therapeutics and Diet"), was translated into Latin and Hebrew and was influential to the progress of surgery. He also improved surgical and medical knowledge by keying out several diseases and their treatments. Ibn Zuhr performed the first experimental tracheotomy on a goat. He is thought to have made the earliest description of bezoar stones as medicinal items.

Photo of Joseph Calasanz

4. Joseph Calasanz (1556 - 1648)

With an HPI of 61.58, Joseph Calasanz is the 4th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Joseph Calasanz (Spanish: José de Calasanz; Italian: Giuseppe Calasanzio), (September 11, 1557 – August 25, 1648), also known as Joseph Calasanctius and Iosephus a Matre Dei, was a Spanish Catholic priest, educator and the founder of the Pious Schools, which provided free education to poor boys. For this purpose he founded the religious order that ran them, commonly known as the Piarists. He became a close friend of the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei. Joseph is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church, following his 1767 papal canonization.

Photo of Severo Ochoa

5. Severo Ochoa (1905 - 1993)

With an HPI of 61.29, Severo Ochoa is the 5th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 56 different languages.

Severo Ochoa de Albornoz (Spanish: [seˈβeɾo oˈtʃoa ðe alβoɾˈnoθ]; 24 September 1905 – 1 November 1993) was a Spanish physician and biochemist, and winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with Arthur Kornberg for their discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)".

Photo of Hasdai ibn Shaprut

6. Hasdai ibn Shaprut (910 - 975)

With an HPI of 59.25, Hasdai ibn Shaprut is the 6th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Hasdai (Abu Yusuf ben Yitzhak ben Ezra) ibn Shaprut (Hebrew: חסדאי אבן שפרוט; Arabic: حسداي بن شبروط, Abu Yussuf ibn Shaprut) born about 915 at Jaén, Spain; died about 970 at Córdoba, Andalusia, was a Jewish scholar, physician, diplomat, and patron of science. His father, Isaac ben Ezra, was a wealthy and learned Jew of Jaén. Hasdai acquired in his youth a thorough knowledge of Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin, the latter being known only to the higher clergy of Spain at the time. He also studied medicine, and is said to have discovered a panacea, called Al-Faruk. Appointed physician to Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III (912-961), he, by his engaging manners, knowledge, character, and extraordinary ability, gained his master's confidence to such a degree that he became the caliph's confidant and faithful counselor. Without bearing the title of vizier he was in reality minister of foreign affairs; he had also control of the customs and ship-dues in the port of Córdoba. Hasdai arranged the alliances formed by the caliph with foreign powers, and he received the envoys sent by the latter to Córdoba. In 949 an embassy was sent by Constantine VII to form a diplomatic league between the hard-pressed Byzantine empire and the powerful ruler of Spain. Among the presents brought by the embassy was a magnificent codex of Pedanius Dioscorides' work on botany, which the Arabic physicians and naturalists valued highly. Hasdai, with the aid of a learned Greek monk named Nicholas, translated it into Arabic, making it thereby the common property of the Arabs and of medieval Europe.

Photo of Leander of Seville

7. Leander of Seville (534 - 600)

With an HPI of 58.43, Leander of Seville is the 7th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Leander of Seville (Spanish: San Leandro de Sevilla; Latin: Sanctus Leandrus; c. 534 AD, in Cartagena – 13 March 600 or 601, in Seville) was a Hispano-Roman Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Seville. He was instrumental in effecting the conversion of the Visigothic kings Hermenegild and Reccared to Chalcedonian Christianity. His brother (and successor as bishop) was the encyclopedist Isidore of Seville.

Photo of Petrus Alphonsi

8. Petrus Alphonsi (1062 - 1140)

With an HPI of 52.23, Petrus Alphonsi is the 8th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Petrus Alphonsi (died after 1116) was a Spanish physician, writer, astronomer and polemicist who was born and raised as a Jew and later in life converted to Christianity in 1106. He is also known just as Alphonsi, and as Peter Alfonsi or Peter Alphonso, and was born Moses Sephardi. Born in Islamic Spain, he mostly lived in England and France after his conversion.

Photo of Nicolás Monardes

9. Nicolás Monardes (1508 - 1588)

With an HPI of 50.69, Nicolás Monardes is the 9th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Nicolás Bautista Monardes (1493 – 10 October 1588) was a Spanish physician and botanist. Monardes published several books of varying importance. In Diálogo llamado pharmacodilosis (1536), he examines humanism and suggests studying several classical authors, principally Pedanius Dioscorides. He discusses the importance of Greek and Arab medicine in De Secanda Vena in pleuriti Inter Grecos et Arabes Concordia (1539). De Rosa et partibus eius (1540) is about roses and citrus fruits. It is known that Monardes also believed that tobacco smoke was an infallible panacea. Monardes' most significant and well known work was Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, published in three parts under varying titles (in 1565, 1569 and completed in 1574; unchanged reprint in 1580). This was translated into Latin by Charles de l'Écluse and into English by John Frampton with the title "Joyfull Newes out of the newfound world".

Photo of Gregorio Marañón

10. Gregorio Marañón (1887 - 1960)

With an HPI of 47.64, Gregorio Marañón is the 10th most famous Spanish Physician.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Gregorio Marañón y Posadillo, OWL ([ɡɾeˈɣoɾjo maɾaˈɲon]; 19 May 1887 – 27 March 1960) was a Spanish physician, scientist, historian, writer and philosopher. He married Dolores Moya in 1911, and they had four children (Carmen, Belén, María Isabel and Gregorio).

People

Pantheon has 15 people classified as Spanish physicians born between 534 and 1966. Of these 15, 2 (13.33%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Spanish physicians include Teresa Forcades, and Fernando Simón. The most famous deceased Spanish physicians include Michael Servetus, Al-Zahrawi, and Ibn Zuhr. As of April 2024, 3 new Spanish physicians have been added to Pantheon including Petrus Alphonsi, Concepción Aleixandre, and Fernando Simón.

Living Spanish Physicians

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Deceased Spanish Physicians

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Newly Added Spanish Physicians (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Physicians were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 5 most globally memorable Physicians since 1700.