Julio Jané Jané

He was born in southeastern Cuba, in the Villa del Guaso, to a couple, his parents the pharmacist doctor don Pablo Jané Trocné and his cousin Julia Jané Escobedo.

Yes, when the twentieth century was dawning, a child arrived in the Guantanamo family Jané-Jané, whom they called Julio. Pablo died young and before expiring expressed his last wish: he would like Julio to study and become a great doctor. To make his dream a reality, he left as heir to his young wife a considerable fortune, which included an extensive zone south of the city, known as La Isleta, which extended to Guantánamo Bay.

In 1909, at eight years of age, they sent the boy to study in Barcelona, where he remained until 1915, when he turned 14 and completed primary education. He returned to Guantánamo and continued his studies at Colegio Dolores in Santiago de Cuba, where he studied secondary education. That institution contributed to forging an iron will and a spirit made for sacrifice.

After graduating in 1920, he began his studies at the School of Medicine in Paris the following year, standing out among Latin American students for his dedication to study with a passionate desire for research. From 1922 to 1927, he always obtained brilliant grades and his professors in academic disciplines always highlighted him as a reference for medical practices.

At age 27, we find Jané as an assistant to that glory of world science that was the Polish Marie Curie—born Marja Sklodowska—at the Radium Institute in Paris. For several years he would assist in her research—until the scientist's death—at that pinnacle of knowledge.

Julio Jané graduated in Medicine from the universities of La Sorbona and La Habana. He passed the resident exams at the French Anti-Cancer Center Croix Saint Simon (1923). In 1925 he becomes the first Latin American specialist in Radiology and Radiodiagnosis. Two years later, he is proposed to lead the surgical services of the Anti-Cancer Center at Lariboisière Hospital in Paris.

Among many other qualifications, he obtained the degree of technician in nuclear energy, issued by the Institute of Nuclear Studies based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the place in the United States where the atomic bomb was developed. He already enjoyed renown in the world scientific community, and he did not lack offers in Paris, which he rejected to practice in his country.

Armed with his talent and the solid preparation acquired, Julio Jané was a man ahead of his time in Cuban science, returning to Cuba in 1937.

He decided then to return to Cuba and arrived in Guantánamo at Christmas 1937. He wished to establish himself in his native land and with a certain air of romanticism serve his people as a doctor. He thought about practicing private medicine and offering one day of free consultation. Faced with the abandonment of healthcare that existed then, he contributed to organizing a hygiene campaign but forces moved by obscure political interests and gratuitous enemies accused him of being subversive for supporting that praiseworthy initiative.

He then made the decision to establish himself in La Habana. He met and later married Juana Concepción Reyes and aided by his young wife, Dr. Jané founded in El Vedado the Private Center for Electrotherapy and Radiotherapy. It was the beginning of a new stage.

In 1942, with the support of other colleagues, he organized the First Congress of Cancerology and later contributed to founding the Radium Institute, attached to Hospital Reina Mercedes. In these years he did not lack offers to work in Barcelona and New York, where he would receive a substantial salary, proposals which he rejected.

Already established, he took up an old dream: working on a broad and costly project that would allow the application of nuclear energy in its peaceful use for cancer treatment and food preservation.

He then attempted the dream of creating in the property La Isleta, south of his native city, a scientific center. He wanted to convert that place into a center for breeding animals destined for medical research and crops subjected to the applied technology of radiations for their preservation, but he found lack of support, which caused the frustration of his most cherished dream as a man of science.

In Cuba he put electrology to work for rehabilitation and physiotherapy. His experiments created an innovative method for diagnosing cancer, and he worked on the application of ultrasound, when this resource was still in its infancy. He worked successfully in the rehabilitation of polio patients and was a sworn enemy of invasive techniques.

In El Vedado he gave life to the Center for Electrotherapy and Radiotherapy. He contributed to founding the Radium Institute, attached to Hospital Reina Mercedes, while offers rained down on him to work in Barcelona or New York.

Jané collaborated with American atomic physicist Paul C. Aebersold (1910-1967), one of the great figures in the peaceful applications of nuclear science, with whom he shared sympathy for the nascent Cuban revolution. Perhaps this explains why the American died under rare circumstances, by falling from a skyscraper, in an event that American special services wanted to portray as a suicide caused by psychological imbalance.

Dr. Julio Jané was not only a leading scientist, but also a man of high civic virtues.

Nothing was casual about his deep-rooted friendship with Eduardo Chibás, with whom he shared dreams of popular improvement. (When the Orthodox leader found himself wounded by his own hand, Jané was prevented from being part of the medical board that discussed the case. This refusal led many to think that a conspiracy ended the life of the champion).

In the midst of official indifference toward health, he gave public lectures in the university Plaza Cadenas with the aim of providing medical instruction to the people. Such action would be labeled subversive by the henchmen of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship.

Concerned about agriculture and popular nutrition, he advocated preserving food through radiation, saying, "we plant only to rot."

He declared war on transnational companies that added carcinogenic substances to food.

Batista—usurper in power—sought to develop a nuclear project and a congress on that matter, which would be nothing but masquerades. Jané opposed it and, supported by scientists of solid prestige, among them Dr. Aebersold, managed to frustrate the political attempts.

That Guantanamo native, descendant of mambises, great in mind and in heart, was unconditional in his devotion to his homeland until August 8, 1973, when he went down to the grave in the Pantheon of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

About Dr. Julio Jané Jané it has been said that he did not value the Hippocratic Oath as a cold mandate, much less as a text of professional formality and vague importance—only useful for citing it in speeches—but rather assumed it as a vital commitment.

Dr. Julio Jané Jané never stopped believing in human improvement: that was the main meaning of his existence. And that life ended in the morning of August 8, 1972, at seventy-one years of age, leaving a trail of love in his family, in science, and in his people.