Enrique Lluria Despau

Cuban physician and sociologist who became one of the first Cuban materialists.

Born in Matanzas on February 24, 1863.

He began his medical studies at the University of La Habana and completed them at the Universities of Barcelona and Madrid. He completed practical work as an internal physician at Necker Hospital in Paris alongside Dr. Joaquín Albarrán. He studied his specialty in Urology from 1889 to 1893. It was in this specialty where he achieved important scientific discoveries. He arrived in Madrid in 1893, collaborating with Spanish physiologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who in 1905 wrote the prologue to his book Super-organic Evolution of Human Beings.

In 1896 he married Clara Iruretagoyena, with whom he had three children, but six years later his wife died. While a widower, he met María Vinyals through new acquaintances, presumed heiress of Sotomayor; a relationship that soon became an engagement, and later a marriage. Upon the death of the Marquis of Mos (María Vinyals's uncle), and being the heiress to his castle, the Lluria couple moved to Sotomayor, in Pontevedra, where between 1909 and 1910 they built a building next to the castle which they converted into a sanatorium. For this purpose they proceeded to install operating rooms and offices; as well as a mill and a dairy farm, to meet the needs of future guests.

After some time, the Lluria Sanatorium was boycotted when the news spread that it was a meeting point for high-ranking socialist officials, such as Pablo Iglesias or Giner de los Rios. This fact led to its ruin. On the other hand, the economic expenditure caused by the works was substantial, exceeding all of Enrique Lluria's expectations, in light of which it was thought to sell some of the valuable objects that adorned the palace and the chapel, rebuilt in 1870.

He conducted notable urological research and published Permanent Catheterization of the Ureters in 1891. He wrote other works of a sociological nature, such as Super-organic Evolution (nature and the social problem), published in 1905, and Humanity of the Future, in 1906, in which he presented his ideas on the relationship between sociology and natural sciences. Widely republished since then through the nineteen thirties in working-class circles. He developed extensive studies in sociology and published books and articles in this specialty.

He closely addressed social problems, approaching working-class circles and socialism, delivering numerous lectures at the Center of Workers' Societies in Madrid, a predecessor of the Casa del Pueblo. Between 1898 and 1899 he was part of the editorial team of the magazine Vida Nueva and subsequently collaborated in the socialist weekly La Revista Socialista.

Although he considered himself a socialist, he did not formalize his membership in the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party until January 1915, driven by the horror caused by the First World War. He was a member of the Escuela Nueva. In July 1918 he resigned from the party because he disagreed with class struggle and the abuse of strikes, which he thought should be replaced by workers' education. María Vinyals, following the example of her husband and his ideas, was led to join the Socialist Women's Association.

With the Lluria Sanatorium project having failed, they sold Sotomayor Castle and left for La Habana, Cuba in 1919. In early 1925, Enrique Lluria and his wife moved from La Habana to Cienfuegos, where he opened an office at number 161 San Carlos Street, where he died that same year.

Enrique Lluria dies in Cienfuegos on October 6, 1925.