Calle del Doctor Carracido
The street owes its name to José Rodríguez Carracido (Santiago de Compostela, 1856 – Madrid, 1928), pharmacist, biochemist and rector of the Central University of Madrid. The street was opened when the third section of the Gran Vía was laid out; before that urban operation, the ground did not exist as a public street.
Calle del Doctor Carracido was born of a demolition. The third section of the Gran Vía, running from Callao to the Plaza de España, began in 1925 and swept away twelve historic streets. This short, perpendicular access lane links Leganitos with the Gran Vía.
The name was placed while the man honoured was still alive, an unusual thing. José Rodríguez Carracido had come from Santiago de Compostela to earn his doctorate in 1875, and in 1898 he took up the first chair of Biological Chemistry ever to exist in Spain, which made him the true father of Spanish biochemistry. He signed more than 180 works, the most cited being his Tratado de Química Biológica of 1903, the first manual of the discipline written in Spanish.
He piled up posts to a dizzying degree: dean of Pharmacy, rector of the Central University, member of the academies of Sciences, Medicine and Language, and a life senator. He died on 3 January 1928, with the works on the section still underway.
Its names
- Calle del Doctor Carracidoc. 1925–1928
Sources (8)
- Madrid: sus viejas calles — Doctor Carracido (Calle del)
- Por las calles de Madrid — Calle del Doctor Carracido
- José Rodríguez Carracido — Wikipedia
- José Rodríguez Carracido — Rectores UCM
- Farmacéuticos Ilustres: José Rodríguez Carracido — Consejo General de Farmacéuticos
- Calle del Doctor Carracido — Wikidata Q28945582
- La Gran Vía y sus edificios. Tramo III — De Rebus Matritensis
- José Rodríguez Carracido — Real Academia Española