[In memoriam Fidel Pagés Miravé (1886-1923) on the 75th anniversary of the publication of "Anesthesia metamérica"].
Fidel Pagés was born in Huesca on the 26th of January 1886. He completed his secondary studies in the same city, later receiving his degree in medicine and surgery from University of Zaragoza (1908) with high honors. The same year he joined the army medical corp, to be sent to serve in Melilla in 1909 with a rank of second medical officer. After being promoted in 1911 to first medical officer, he served in Tarragona, Toledo, Madrid (where received his doctoral degree), Ciudad Real, and once again in Madrid. In 1913 Pagés married and was destined to Mahón, only to return to work at the War Ministry in Madrid in 1915, after a brief sojourn in Alicante. The same year he placed first in competition for a staff position at Madrid's Hospital Provincial. In 1917, during World War I, he inspected POW camps in Austria and Hungary, while also serving in the military hospital in Vienna. In 1919 he became the founding editor of Revista Española de Cirugía, which published "Anestesia metamérica" in 1921, simultaneous to its publication in Revista de Sanidad Militar. In 1920 on he was assigned to Madrid's Hospital Militar de Urgencia, but was also briefly sent to Melilla in 1921 as a consequence of the military "Disaster at Annual". In 1922 he was promoted to the rank of Medical Commandant. On the 21st of September 1923, Pagés died in a traffic accident while returning to Madrid from San Sebastián. His work was soon forgotten, as can be seen from the credit long given to the Italian surgeon Dogliotti for the discovery of epidural anesthesia. Only with passing time, and through the effort of Argentinian and Spanish physicians, has the world come to recognize Pagés as the original author of this technique.
Herrera
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Servicios de Anestesiología y Reanimación, Hospital Universitario Virgen del Rocío, Sevilla.
de las Mulas
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D000767:Anesthesia, Epidural / Q000266:history*; D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000266:history*; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008887:Military Medicine / Q000266:history*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000266:history; D013030:Spain