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Dr. Miquel Àngel Fargas Roca's historical archive

Dr. Miquel Àngel Fargas Roca’s (Castellterçol 1858-Barcelone 1916) interest in anatomy and surgery, manifest in his doctoral thesis (1882), prompted his work towards gynaecological surgery, which he developed in his own clinic. The Museum conserves the clinical records of patients assisted in the so called at first “Clínica de Ginecopatía” and later on “Dr. Fargas’ Clinic”, between 1884 and 1920. It seems evident that these are the experiences from which Dr. Fargas nourished himself for his lessons as Obstetrics Professor (1893-1916) as well as for the elaboration of the two volumes of his “Treaty on Gynaecology” (1903, reedited on 1910 and 1938.) Dr. Fargas himself acknowledges in the prologue that the book is the result of “twenty years of practice… with a contingent of 18,000 patients.” It was also the result of a very open reception of the printed gynaecological production of that period, especially French, his attendance to international meetings, his visits to noteworthy European gynaecological clinics and his friendship with the most important gynaecologists of the time -an example of the formation and consolidation of the specialty in Catalonia. Dr. Fargas’ archive is interesting as well because it allows studying the new conservative gynaecological surgery he defended in classrooms and divulged through his writings. An array of documentation, therefore, which comes from a specific context, the private clinic, where the combination between the operating room and the laboratory was significant, and that served as a model for the new sections of the Teaching Hospital.

Dr. Fargas’ archive also contains documentation regarding his cursus honorum and other professional activities in which he took part. It is noteworthy, for instance, the diploma given to Dr. Fargas as president of honour, by Dr. Rafael Rodríguez Méndez, organizer of the first Spanish congress on tuberculosis, held in Barcelona on 1910 -a troubled meeting where Catalan language remained marginalized. This was the trigger of a series of activities aimed to the promotion of Catalan as a scientific language, such as the organization in Barcelona on 1913 of the first congress of physicians in Catalan language, in which Dr. Fargas was also president and promoter of the General Association of Catalan Speaking Physicians, which would take charge from that moment of the biannual celebration of that same congress, so important for the history of Catalan medicine and culture.