Laureano Calderón Arana

Laureano Calderón
Portrayed in La Farmacia Moderna
Born(1847-07-04)July 4, 1847
DiedMarch 4, 1894(1894-03-04) (aged 46)
Cementerio civil de Madrid
CitizenshipSpain
EducationCentral University of Madrid
OccupationsProfessor, chemist, pharmacist, physicist, and crystallographer
EmployerCentral University of Madrid

Laureano Calderón y Arana (Madrid,[1] 4 July 1847[2] – Madrid,[3] 4 March 1894)[4][2] was a Spanish chemist, pharmacist, physicist and crystallographer,[5] brother of the also scientist Salvador Calderón[6] and of the journalist Alfredo Calderón y Arana.[7] Associated with the Institución Libre de Enseñanza,[8] he was the inventor of an instrument for crystallographic studies called the «estauróscopo»[9] and one of the pioneers in the study and teaching of biochemistry in Spain.[10]

Biography

Son of Antonio María Calderón, native of Campuzano, Province of Santander, and of María Ignacia Arana de Barrenechea, native of Usúrbil; he was born in Madrid on 4 July 1847.[2][a][2] He had as brothers Alfredo, who was born three years later, in 1850,[7] and Salvador.[11] Disciple of Manuel Rioz y Pedraja, he graduated in Pharmacy in 1866 at the Central University;[12] he soon won, by competition, the position of assistant and auxiliary in the Faculty of Pharmacy of said institution.[13]

After competitions he held in 1874, he obtained the chair of Organic chemistry at the University of Santiago de Compostela.[13] He has been noted for his inclusion, during the 1870s, in a group of followers of Darwinist lines of thought, called "novísimo movement of natural philosophy", a term apparently coined by his brother Alfredo, among whom, in addition to Laureano Calderón, were the scientists Augusto González de Linares, Odón de Buen, his other brother —Salvador—, Blas Lázaro Ibiza, Enrique Serrano Fatigati or José Rodríguez Carracido.[14] He was a follower of the ideas of Julián Sanz del Río and Francisco Giner de los Ríos, having been described as their "disciple".[15]

I have not been appointed professor to form catechumens of any political system, but only to teach science, in which truth is sought, without distinction of origins.

Laureano Calderón Arana[16]

After the measures taken by the Marquis of Orovio, Minister of Development, regarding Public Instruction,[b][17][18][19][20] the protests of Calderón[21] in defense of academic freedom[22] —branded as "energetic" and "vehement"— caused him to be imprisoned, together with Augusto González de Linares, in the Castle of San Antón in A Coruña,[13] after a Royal Order dated 12 April 1875.[23][24]

Having obtained freedom, although stripped of his chair, he moved to Paris,[13] deciding to expatriate himself;[23] there he became a disciple of Marcellin Berthelot, whom he helped in his studies of chemical synthesis and whose works on thermochemistry he continued later.[13] Later he emigrated to Germany, where he studied crystallography with Paul von Groth,[25] in Strasbourg,[c] In this stay in both countries he also worked with Claude Bernard, Éleuthère Mascart or Felix Hoppe-Seyler.[26] Calderón devised an instrument for crystallographic studies that was named «estauróscopo».[9]

After his experiences abroad, he returned to Spain,[27] in 1880.[28] Considered one of the creators of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza[8] —his protests against the Marquis of Orovio, together with those of other professors, giving rise to the birth of this—[29] and a "prestigious man of science of the Institution",[30] he was in fact included in the list of professors of the ILE, but never came to exercise as such.[26][31] His chair was not restored until 3 March 1881, when the Minister of Development José Luis Albareda declared his rights reinstated.[23] Member of some foreign scientific societies, he was part of the International Commission for the reform of chemical nomenclature and honorary positions were granted to him in various scientific congresses he attended.[27][d][26] According to José Gutiérrez Abascal, "Laureano Calderón was much better known as an eminent chemist abroad, and especially in Germany and France, than in Spain".[32]

He had a laboratory installed on Calle de Carretas,[27] acquired in 1880 and originally founded by Saez, Utor and Soler,[33] where analyses of various substances were carried out, including urine.[27] In 1884 he was asked to study the industrial exploitation of the Laguna de Fuente Piedra, proposing the installation of a fertilizer factory;[34] he was promoter of the Compañía Agrícola Salinera, whose direction was entrusted to him and which worked in the production of superphosphates.[33][e][28]

In 1884 he gave a notable speech at the Ateneo de Madrid —institution of whose Section of Natural Sciences he was president, re-elected,[35] for a period of three years—[36] on the occasion of the inauguration of the new building of the institution,[37][26] in which Calderón expressed "his firm conviction that the new science of thermodynamics provided the foundational basis to solve the pressing problems of society".[38]

The death of Laureano Calderón has made evident the isolation in which science lives in Spain. All the media joined together to pay first-class funeral honors to the eminent professor, but in life how little they encouraged him in the pursuit of his scientific works!

José Rodríguez Carracido.[39]

In 1888 he was granted the chair of Biological Chemistry and Critical History of Pharmacy at the Central University of Madrid,[40][41][f] an event that has been associated with the beginning of biochemistry in Spain,[10] although others assign the merit to Carracido, later than Arana.[44] In 1892 he gave the speech La química descriptiva y la química racional at the Central University, as the opening of the academic year.[45]

He was the author of Los explosivos y pólvoras sin humo, a work he did not live to see published;[27] in this sense his not very outstanding research activity has been negatively underlined and that he did not translate foreign works, in fact, according to Francisco Javier Puerto, conservative historiography would have labeled him as "disseminator", despising his scientific work.[44] He died on 4 March 1894 in Madrid at the age of forty-six,[4][26][g][46] and was buried in the civil cemetery of the city.[47][h]

Notes

  1. ^ He was baptized on the 9th by the deputy priest of the parish church of San Luis, Pedro Alba.
  2. ^ After the fall of the First Spanish Republic and the end of the period known as Sexenio Democrático, the period known as Restoration began, at whose beginning a Royal Order and a circular from the Minister of Development, the Marquis of Orovio, published on 26 February 1875 returned the situation regarding education to the state prior to the Revolution of 1868, strongly restricting academic freedom, as the programs of the different subjects passed to State control and the teaching of knowledge "contrary to the Catholic dogma" was denied. In the words of the decree, "the damages that absolute freedom has caused in teaching, the repeated complaints of parents and the students themselves, the duty that the Government has to watch over morality and sound doctrines and the sense of responsibility that weighs on it, justify and require its intervention in official teaching".
  3. ^ After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871 most of the Alsace region had passed to belong to the German Empire, a situation that lasted until the First World War. where shortly after he was appointed director of practical works of Crystallography and Mineralogy.[13]
  4. ^ He was, for example, vice-president of the Chemical Congress of Paris in 1889 and honorary president of the chemical section of the French Association for the Advancement of Sciences, around 1892.
  5. ^ He directed the company until 1888.
  6. ^ This appointment would have been supported by Fausto Garagarza, then councilor of Public Instruction, his friend since his time in Santiago de Compostela.[42] Among the "merits and services" of Calderón to be granted the chair cited in La Gaceta de Madrid is that he published various memoirs in the Comptes-rendus of the French Academy of Sciences, among them "Studies of the different rotary powers presented by cane sugar", "Properties of resorcinol", "Molecular volumes of resorcinol", "Thermochemical studies of resorcinol", in addition to various articles in Groth's Journal of Crystallography in German: "Optical observations on cane sugar crystals", "Observations on a new estauroscope and modifications to Groth's universal crystallographic apparatus", "Crystallographic studies on some organic substances", "Optical properties of the blend of Picos de Europa", "The iodonitric plates, in collaboration with Professors Groth and Nilson" and "Description of the mineralogical collection of Strasbourg, in collaboration with Groth".[41][43]
  7. ^ The cause of death at such an early age is unknown. The most explicit source in this regard states "he has fallen wounded by unexpected death and without cause. A simple chance of fatality!".
  8. ^ At the funeral, which took place on 6 March 1894, personalities such as Eduardo Vincenti, Fausto Garagarza, Gumersindo Azcárate, Nicolás Salmerón, Giner de los Ríos, Tolosa Latour, Adelardo Ortiz de Pinedo or his brother Alfredo Calderón, among others, attended.[48]

References

  1. ^ Codina Castellví 1894, p. 146.
  2. ^ a b c d "Don Laureano Calderón y Arana" [Mr. Laureano Calderón y Arana]. La Farmacia Moderna. 5 (10): 145. 1894. ISSN 0213-036X.
  3. ^ Jiménez-Landi 1996, pp. 395–397.
  4. ^ a b Puerto 1995, p. 53.
  5. ^ Sequeiros San Román 2004, pp. 391–392; Codina Castellví 1894, pp. 154–156.
  6. ^ Martín Sanz 1984, p. 166; Jiménez-Landi 1996, p. 397.
  7. ^ a b Jiménez-Landi 1996, p. 395.
  8. ^ a b Puerto 1995, p. 57.
  9. ^ a b Puerto 1995, p. 55; Valle López 1998, p. 110.
  10. ^ a b Illana 2009, pp. 310–318.
  11. ^ Jiménez-Landi 1996, p. 397.
  12. ^ Jiménez-Landi 1996, p. 396; Sequeiros San Román 2004, pp. 391–392.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Codina Castellví 1894, p. 148.
  14. ^ Ortiz García & Sánchez Gómez 1994, p. 248.
  15. ^ Macías 1894, p. 158.
  16. ^ Historia de la educación en España y América: La educación en la España contemporánea (1789-1975) [History of Education in Spain and America: Education in Contemporary Spain (1789-1975)]. Ediciones Morata. 1994. pp. 480–482. ISBN 978-84-7112-378-7.
  17. ^ Gómez García 1983, pp. 325–326.
  18. ^ Gómez García 1983, pp. 325–326; Martí Gilabert 1991, pp. 34–36.
  19. ^ Sotelo 2013.
  20. ^ Martí Gilabert 1991, pp. 34–36.
  21. ^ Codina Castellví 1894, p. 148; Codina Castellví 1894b, p. 150.
  22. ^ Gurriarán 2011, p. 286.
  23. ^ a b c Codina Castellví 1894b, p. 153.
  24. ^ Orovio (14 April 1875). "Real orden separando á los Catedráticos de la Universidad de Santiago D. Augusto González de Linares y D. Laureano Calderón y Arana" [Royal order separating the Professors of the University of Santiago Mr. Augusto González de Linares and Mr. Laureano Calderón y Arana.] (PDF). Gaceta de Madrid (in Spanish) (104): 128–129.
  25. ^ Codina Castellví 1894, p. 148; Sequeiros San Román 2004, pp. 391–392.
  26. ^ a b c d e "D. Laureano Calderón" [Mr. Laureano Calderón]. Boletín de la Institución Libre de Enseñanza (409). Institución Libre de Enseñanza: 97–99. 30 April 1894. ISSN 0214-1302.
  27. ^ a b c d e Codina Castellví 1894, p. 149.
  28. ^ a b Valle López 1998, p. 110.
  29. ^ Bartolomé Martínez, Bernabé; Delgado Criado, Buenaventura; Fundación Santa María (Madrid, Spain), eds. (1992). Historia de la educación en España y América: La educación en la España contemporánea (1789-1975) [History of education in Spain and America: Education in contemporary Spain (1789-1975)]. Madrid: Ediciones SM. ISBN 978-84-7112-374-9.
  30. ^ Núñez Espallargas & Servat Susagne 1988, p. 90.
  31. ^ Sequeiros San Román 2004, p. 392.
  32. ^ Kasabal 1894, p. 163.
  33. ^ a b Siboni 1892, pp. 496–499.
  34. ^ Siboni 1892, pp. 496–499; Codina Castellví 1894, p. 149.
  35. ^ Codina Castellví 1894, p. 149; Siboni 1892, p. 498.
  36. ^ Encina 1897, pp. 1–2.
  37. ^ Calderón y Arana 1884, pp. 100–136.
  38. ^ Pohl Valero 2010, pp. 44–45.
  39. ^ Rodríguez Carracido 1894, p. 162.
  40. ^ Codina Castellví 1894, p. 149; Illana 2009, pp. 310–318.
  41. ^ a b Canalejas y Méndez (12 August 1888). "Real orden nombrando Catedrático numerario de la Facultad de Farmacia de la Universidad Central, con destino á la cátedra de Química biológica é Historia crítica de la Farmacia, á D. Laureano Calderón y Arana" [Royal order appointing full Professor of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Central University, assigned to the chair of Biological Chemistry and Critical History of Pharmacy, to Mr. Laureano Calderón y Arana.] (PDF). Gaceta de Madrid (in Spanish) (225): 447.
  42. ^ Santos Ruiz 1991, pp. 12–14.
  43. ^ "Actualidades" [News]. Los Avisos Sanitarios. 12 (23): 722. 20 August 1888.
  44. ^ a b Puerto 1995, p. 58.
  45. ^ Calderón y Arana 1892, pp. 1–76; Muñoz Ramos 1892, pp. 494–496; Valle López 1998, p. 72.
  46. ^ Macías 1894, p. 159.
  47. ^ Morote 1913, p. 4.
  48. ^ Codina Castellví 1894, p. 147.

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