Plaza del Doctor Marañón
Honours Gregorio Marañón, the doctor who brought endocrinology to Spain and whose name was given to the crossroads where he had lived.
Gregorio Marañón y Posadillo (Madrid, 1887-1960) was one of the great Spanish doctors of the twentieth century, and this crossroads facing the paseo de la Castellana bears his name because he lived here, on the corner with José Abascal. He opened an almost unknown field in Spain, endocrinology, and framed an idea ahead of its time: that emotion and adrenaline are bound together, that fear and love also brew in the body’s depths.
A reply is attributed to him that sums up his craft. Asked about the greatest advance in medicine, he answered: “The chair.” The chair to sit beside the patient, listen without haste and look them in the eye.
The name came after his death. At the centre of the square it is not he who presides but an equestrian statue of the Marquis of Duero, raised in 1885 from the bronze of old cannons.