DYNAMIS. Acta Hisp. Med. Sci. Hist. Illus. 2004, 24, 307-358.
José Vicente MARTÍ; Antonio REY (eds.). Antología de textos de Félix Martí
Ibáñez, Valencia, Generalitat Valenciana, 2004. ISBN: 84-482-3690-4.
This volume —a challenge to review not only because of the broad scope
of articles reproduced but also because of the different stages in the life
experience of their author— constitutes the first anthology of Félix Martí
Ibáñez’s writings to incorporate texts from the mid-1930s up to the end of his
life. Martí Ibáñez, psychiatrist, anarchist doctor and historian of medicine, saw
his professional and political activities radically altered upon his exile to New
York in 1939, where he lived the rest of his life. The republication of his works
falls neatly into the on-going «recuperation of historical memory», particularly
of the 1930s workers’ movement, silenced by the Franco regime and the
democratic pacts of the transition towards democracy. The post-Civil War
period of Martí Ibáñez’s life and writing corresponds to very different realities
and aspirations, a period up to 1972, his death, which reflects professional
success and, at first sight, concerns very different from those voiced during his
«anarchist period». However, the literary style of Martí Ibáñez, florid and
expressive, before 1939 and his engaging humanism both continued throughout
his life.
We are presented here, therefore, with the life and work of one of the
many radicals who were forced to leave Spain, driven out by the advancing
fascist troops commanded by General Franco. The mixture of idealism, commitment
and, ultimately, tragedy, make for an arresting read. The book opens with an
excellent overview, preceded by a brief prologue written by Josep Lluís Barona
on the life and times of Martí Ibáñez. The social, political and medical context
of the early twentieth century are captured in this essay and their interconnection
makes for the impossibility of reading medicine and science as domains unrelated
to wider realities. Furthermore, the connections between science, progress,
rationalism and anarchism are made explicit. An analysis of his works and a
bibliography follows.
The selection of Martí Ibáñez’s works departs with sections of his 1935
thesis on the history of mystical Indian psychology and physiology through to
his contributions to anarchist reviews such as the Valencia-based Estudios, to
works on the history of medicine and to literary compositions. We learn that
from early days, when Martí Ibáñez was a medical student and during his thesis
writing, he was, according to his doctoral thesis supervisor E. García del Real,
one of the few students who remained behind after class to discuss matters
raised during the lecture. We learn of the aspirations of the young, idealistic
doctor and, with a degree of prescience unfortunately to be fulfilled too early
on, that «Martí Ibáñez, probablemente, verá reducirse considerablemente sus
afanes históricos y las posibilidades de realizarlos en un porvenir más o menos
remoto. Mientras llegan esos días tristes, dejémosle volar y animémosle con
frases de estímulo y de aplauso» (p. 73).
The eclecticism of Martí Ibáñez is displayed by his thesis topic, a testimony
to his remarkable knowledge (at the age of 24!) and ability to fuse concerns
relating to medicine, literature, social movements and quasi-spiritualism. The
literary aspects of his work, often with Cervantine and other seventeenthcentury
traits, discussed elsewhere and presented in this volume by Julián
Bravo Vega, are seen in short sections reproduced from his novel Yo, Rebelde
(1936). His eulogy of Spring’s arrival is typical of his prose: «Sigo mi búsqueda
y continuo descubriendo la primavera. La encuentro en la tierra del parquecillo,
caliente y del color de miel, en una matuja polvorienta y enfermiza, pisoteada
por los chiquillos, que ya lanza dos florecillas azules, en las macetas de geranios
que desde el balcón de la Casa de Familia me lanzan su apagada mirada
roja (...)» (pp. 97-98).
The combative but always humanistic revolutionary aspects of Félix Martí
Ibáñez’s work is well represented here and placed within the context of his
appointment by the anarcho-syndicalist CNT to take the role of Director of
Sanitat i Assistència Social (SIAS), the Catalan Generalitat department, from late
1936 through to May 1937. During this period, Martí Ibáñez was the architect
of the abortion decree of December 1936 (reproduced on pp. 135-142), campaigns
against venereal disease and eugenics, and the planned but never apparently
realised liberatorios de prostitución. The revolution in medicine and sexuality
promoted by the CNT in this period is praised by Martí Ibáñez, not without a
degree of triumphalism: «La Revolución ibérica ha significado aparte de la
subversión de las antiguas estructuraciones sociales, una renovación de los
valores espirituales de nuestro país y la creación de un subsuelo histórico
esponjoso de humanismo, sobre el cual florecen nuevas y felices iniciativas» (p.
107). Medical care and hospitals were rationalised and socialised under the
CNT (p. 119).
Perhaps one of the most innovative, but to this reviewer’s mind, flawed
attempts at history that Martí Ibáñez was to engage in was what would later be
termed «psycho-history». His essay Psicoanálisis de la Revolución Social Española
(1937) charts the developmental stages of the Revolution from infancy to
maturity, passing through the requisite oedipal stage (pp. 157-181). The tragedy
of the doomed projects contained in this social revolution, one the most
profound to take place in Western history, is brought home by Martí Ibáñez’s
article «Y...España», published in the New York review Ariel, Revista de Hechos
e Ideas, established by the anarchist doctor in Los Angeles. Ariel forms a bridge
with his activity in Spain and urges the world not to forget the Spanish tragedy
(p. 37).
Once in the United States the professional activity of Martí Ibáñez takes
another turn and one sees a progressive detachment from Spain and from the
anarchist movement that once claimed many of his efforts. Despite the occasional
article in the exiled CNT’s Solidaridad Obrera Martí Ibáñez now consolidated his
position as Director of the Department of Medical History in New York Medical
College and wrote extensively on medical history and dedicated many efforts
to novel writing. It was necessary, he wrote, to describe, interpret and express
the history of medicine. But it was not sufficient to merely recount dates, facts
and times; on the contrary, he wrote, «debe ser una presentación de la realidad
histórica imaginativa en la forma y realista en el contenido, si se desea convertir
la historia en lo que Ortega y Gasset llama entusiasta intento de resurrección»
(p. 225).
On reading this extraordinary collection of works by Félix Martí Ibáñez
one cannot but be struck time and time again by the overt commitment to a
better world, through the arts and through the practise of enlightened medicine
that is contained in every word that Martí Ibáñez wrote. Finally, one
cannot but smile and muse when Martí Ibáñez talks of the contents of his
review MD as an elaborate dish composed of rice and other ingredients, one
that far surpassed the standard but not-so-humble Valencian paella («Ese proceso
de cocina literaria es comparable al realizado en Valencia, donde se
prepara el arroz a banda, un arroz superior a la enciclopedia policroma que es
la paella y a la acuarela que es el arroz con pollo») (p. 218). While the milieu
in which Martí Ibáñez moved in the 1930s —amongst revolutionaries— altered
(he was photographed alongside members of «high society» such as Gina
Lollobrigida), the dream still remains: «Con este espíritu, el generoso aliento
del médico norteamericano y las humildes pero sublimes herramientas de la
palabra y la imagen sobre la inmaculada albura de la página de papel, MD
continuará dando vida a la urdimbre de un ensueño» (p. 223).
RICHARD CLEMINSON
University of Bradford