Founder of a new evaluation of Human and Social Sciences in the training of doctors, he is considered by many as the most outstanding Spanish medical researcher and humanist of the 20th century.

Pedro Laín Entralgo was born in Urrea de Gaén, Teruel, in 1908. He studied in Soria, Teruel and Pamplona and at the universities of Zaragoza, Valencia and Madrid. Graduating in Chemistry, with an extraordinary prize, in 1927, and with a First in Medicine and Surgery, he expanded his studies at the psychiatric clinic of Vienna.

He worked as a doctor in the Valencia provincial asylum, and in 1939 began lecturing in the subject of Experimental Psychology at the University of Madrid, which he would teach until 1941. In 1940 he founded the journal "Escorial" with Ridruejo and Marichalar. Two years later he obtained the chair of History of Medicine at the University of Madrid, from which he would retire after thirty-five years intense work.

He has been a numerary member of the Royal National Academy of Medicine since 1946. In 1952 he was appointed as rector of the University of Madrid by the then Minister of Education, Joaquín Ruíz Giménez, but he resigned four years later as a consequence of the student disturbances which led to Tierno Galván, García Calvo and López Aranguren being removed from their chairs.

In 1964 he entered the Royal Academy of History. In 1982 and 1987 he chaired the Royal Spanish Academy of the Spanish Language.

Founder and director of the Arnau de Vilanova Institute for History of Medicine, of the Higher Council for Scientific Research, and of the journal "Archivo Iberoamericano de la Historia de la Medicina y Antropología Médica", he is an honourary professor of the National University of Santiago de Compostela, and doctor "honoris causa" of the universities of San Marcos (Lima), Toulouse (France), Zaragoza and Valencia. He likewise belongs to the "Akademie der Wissenschften" (Heidelberg), "Academia Leopoldina" (Halle), "Académie Internacionale d´Histoire des Sciences", of the Hispanic Society of America and of the Royal Society of London.

Pedro Laín has published numerous important works, among them the "Historia universal de la Medicina". As an essayist he has contributed to outstanding publications. He has worked as a theatre critic for the "Gaceta Ilustrada", which earned him the National Theatre Prize in the season 1970-71. he has also been awarded the Montaigne Prize in recognition of his work as a doctor and an essayist.

He has written about matters of anthropology and medical history, and also works of a literary and historical nature. Outstanding examples of his work, of the first type, are: "Medicina e Historia" (1941), "La antropolgía de la obra de Fray Luis de Granada" (1946), "Grandes médicos" (1961), "Marañón y el enfermo" (1962), "Nuestro Cajal" (1967), "El médico y el enfermo" (1969), "Gregorio Marañón. Vida y obra" (1969), "La medicina actual" (1973) or "Historia de la Medicina" (1978). Of his literary-historical works, one may mention "Menéndez Pelayo" (1944), "España como problema" (1949) or "Descargo de conciencia" (1975).