Cave paintings and early healthcare, Mesopotamian hospitals, Egyptian papyri, Christian deaconesses and parabalani who defied epidemics, Saint Basil and the first hospital network, Rufaida Al-Aslamiya and Islamic nursing, Beatriz Galindo and the Hospital de La Latina, the Brothers of Saint John of God, the Spanish obregones, Andrés Fernández and his 1617 manual, Simón López and the Directory of Nurses, the healers persecuted by the Inquisition, the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, enslaved nurses, enlightened secularisation, Florence Nightingale and the scientific revolution, Mary Seacole against racism, the Red Cross, the trenches of the world wars, Virginia Henderson and the modern definition, the university, trade unions... For millennia, caring for the sick has been the most human act and, paradoxically, the most invisible. From prehistoric caves to modern ICUs, someone has always been there: bandaging wounds, relieving pain, saving lives. José Ramón Alonso rescues from oblivion those who wove the invisible web that sustains all medicine.
In this book we discover the struggles for professional dignity, the conflicts between science and religion, how nurses transformed hospitals into scientific centres, the absurd prohibitions they had to overcome, the racism they faced, and the advances they achieved.

José Ramón Alonso
Born in Valladolid in 1962, José Ramón Alonso holds a PhD from the University of Salamanca, is Professor of Cell Biology and Director of the Laboratory of Neuronal Plasticity and Neurorepair at the Institute of Neurosciences of Castilla y León. He has been a dean at the Salamanca University and visiting researcher and professor at universities in Germany and the United States, as well as at the Salk Institute. Alonso has published twenty books and numerous scientific articles in leading international journals in his field, as well as several essays.