Ramón Manuel de Jesús Zambrana Valdés

In his short life he was a celebrated physician, an illustrious professor and a prolific writer in addition to being a poet, man of letters, critic and journalist, qualities that characterized him as an accomplished gentleman who earned the affection, consideration and respect of his fellow citizens.

Although most authors give July 10, 1817 as his birth date, the truth is that in his baptismal record, kept in the archives of the old Parish Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, currently known as the Church of Charity, it appears that Ramón Manuel de Jesús Zambrana y Valdés, legitimate son of Ramón and Josefa, was born in La Habana on July 9, 1817.

He grew up in a home environment where love and respect for his parents breathed, who gave him a careful education. Orphaned of both at age 12, he counted on the support of his older brother Antonio, who took charge from then on of giving him the necessary warmth of paternity, of providing him education and of guaranteeing him the instruction to make him a useful man.

After completing primary education under his brother's direction, he began in 1830 to study at the Royal Seminary College of La Habana, where he always obtained brilliant grades and where the sweet and kind character that characterized him throughout his life began to stand out in him. After concluding his Philosophy studies, he graduated in 1836 as a Bachelor of Arts.

As a child, he had undergone surgery for cleft lip, a fact that inspired him early on to practice Medicine, for him it was "a science that teaches man to know himself and to love his fellow men". Since 1835 Antonio had begun the proceedings for his brother's entry into the University, where a year later he entered and began surgical practices under the tutelage of doctor Vicente Antonio de Castro Bermúdez (1809-1868).

While studying, he showed signs of his prodigious industriousness, for in 1838 he was one of the founders of the publication titled Flores de Mayo and, in 1840, he was the editor of Repertorio Médico Habanero, the first Cuban journal dedicated to Medicine, founded that year by doctor Nicolás José Gutiérrez Hernández (1800-1890).

After several years engrossed in his studies with some temporary interruptions due to health problems, he received in 1845 the title of Licentiate in Medicine and, two years later, that of Doctor in Medicine and Surgery, an event that made him the first graduate as such from the University of La Habana after the secularization of the higher education center in 1842.

Upon finishing his degree, he deployed very intense activity with the inspiration of being useful to society. Always willing to alleviate the suffering of others, he made a priesthood of the exercise of his profession and relegated any personal benefit to a secondary plane. While performing his care functions, he deployed many actions in favor of the scientific and cultural development of Cuba.

Eloquent examples of this were his performance as a teacher, which earned him much prestige and admiration, as well as his tireless work in everything that had to do with improving social conditions.

He was professor of Legal Medicine, Public Hygiene, History of Medicine, Physics, Internal Pathology, Obstetrics, Physiology and Anatomical Dissection.

In 1848 he founded with doctors Juan Pinet and Emilio Auber Moya (¿-1884) the journal Repertorio Económico de Medicina, Farmacia y Ciencias Naturales. Six years later he founded and directed with other colleagues the Gaceta Médica and, in 1857, he was a major collaborator of doctor Julio Jacinto Le Riverend Longrou (1794-1864) in the Revista Médica de la Isla de Cuba.

Zambrana had an active participation with doctor Nicolás J. Gutiérrez in the founding of the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana, for which he drafted its Regulations and was its Secretary for four years. In that organization he provided very valuable services and evidenced his high level of instruction. Likewise he shone as a full member, Vice-Secretary, Vice-Censor and Vice-President of the Section of Sciences, History and Fine Arts of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country; as well as in the Royal Board of Development, the Royal Board of Charity, the Superior Board of Public Instruction and the Artistic and Literary Lyceum. He was Inspector of the Royal Botanical Garden and of the Institute of Scientific Research.

On the other hand, in addition to La Flor de Mayo, he founded and edited other periodicals of literary content such as Kaleidoscopio and La Revista del Pueblo and collaborated in the Revista de La Habana, Cuba Literaria and Aguinaldo Habanero. The pages of these publications and the minutes of all the corporations to which he belonged preserve his testimony as poet, man of letters, literary critic, teacher and orator, facets that justify what Calcagno pointed out regarding "...since doctor Tomás Romay no other held at the same time so many positions and commissions, always gratuitous, without ever any decoration adorning his chest, because he only sought to serve the Homeland..."; and that demonstrate that he was one of those tireless workers, who did not let a day pass without exploring a truth, convincing himself of some error or writing even a single line.

Months after marrying the Santiaguera poetess Luisa Pérez Montes de Oca in September of 1858, a union from which five children were born, Zambrana's not very robust health began to suffer, to the point that he found himself in the necessity of making a trip outside the city of La Habana to try to recover. When he felt the effects of the terrible affliction that had weakened him and that would soon end his existence, his greatest concern was the fate of his wife and children when he no longer existed. The death of his beloved brother Antonio accelerated his suffering and contributed to further weaken his deteriorated strength, which gave way forever and caused his death on March 18, 1866.

The cadaver was embalmed and dressed in the garb of a Doctor of Medicine, and was placed in the Great Hall of the University of La Habana, the same place where he so many times enlivened with the presentation of his scientific works. On the shoulders of his disciples and colleagues, he was conducted to the Cemetery of Espada, accompanied by a procession of religious confraternities and representatives of the Academy of Sciences, the Seminary of San Carlos, the Economic Society, the University and a numerous group in which all classes of society were represented. Also present were the Consul of the United States of America with several officers of that nation's naval forces.

More than poor, doctor Zambrana died very rich. Proof of this were the imperishable goods bequeathed to his sensitive widow, his small children and his proud homeland. He willed an unblemished conscience, virtues worthy of imitation and, from a material point of view, a very well-stocked library with the best productions of his time. Honorable and punctilious, in difficult days of want, he thought of selling his library to seek resources in order to support his family. But his friends, that is to say all the people, gave him proof of how much they loved him by helping him save his situation, with which the rich library was saved. In deserved reward, those friendly people plucked the most sensitive strings of gratitude and showed him once more that affection, which is not easy to impose on the masses, at the moment of his physical disappearance by collecting the sum of twenty thousand pesos to help his widow and children.

Upon dying, Zambrana left his family and Cuba the patrimony of his worthy name and the gratitude of his fellow citizens.

He was editor and founder of the publications Repertorio Médico Habanero, Repertorio Económico de Medicina Farmacia y Ciencias Naturales, La Gaceta Médica de La Habana, El Kaleidoscopio, la Revista del Pueblo, among others.

He collaborated in Flores del Siglo, El Artista, El Almendares, Aguinaldo Habanero, Revista de La Habana, Guirnalda Cubana, Semanario Cubano, El Rocío, La Floresta Cubana, El Cesto de Flores, La Piragua, Cuba Literaria and La Idea. He wrote works and articles on medicine.

Among his collaborative works are: La Novena de la Madre del Amor hermoso tutelar de la Corte de María (La Habana 1848), in prose and verse, composed together with Leopoldo Turla, and La Colombiana (1866), an epic poem written with Luisa Pérez. He compiled the verse anthologies La Flor de Mayo, dedicated to the Virgin of the Tropics, edited together with Juan M. de San Pedro (La Habana, Imp. De R. Oliva, 1838) and Cuatro laúdes (La Habana, Est. Tip. La Cubana, 1853), with José G. Roldán, Rafael M. Mendive and Felipe L. Briñas.

Source: Revista Humanidades Médicas