The National College commemorates Ruy Pérez Tamayo one year after his death

“Of all the phenomena that can occur in living beings, death is the most universal and inevitable; these two properties are joined by another, which has more to do with our emotional structure and our inability to live in uncertainty: death It is considered the door to the afterlife, the threshold of the unknown (…) That is why the result is an enormous romantic, authoritarian, dogmatic, imaginary literature, but almost never related to reality”. This is how Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo spoke when it was necessary to analyze this phenomenon inherent to the human being.

This Monday, one year after his death, El Colegio Nacional paid tribute to the Mexican scientist, who at all times shared his knowledge, who gave countless lectures and who positively marked hundreds of lives.

“Don Ruy was the best! If one looks anywhere, his attributes are infinite and the best, they are all true. What was Ruy like? Elegant, intelligent, pleasant, cultured, hard-working, generous, multifaceted and with a great sense of humor, I fall short”, says Julieta Fierro, invited to this meeting between friends and colleagues.

He recalled that “Don Ruy” set fundamental criteria to disseminate science and had to do with the creation of the Somedicyt or the Universum Museum, between anecdotes and jokes he ended up ensuring that the doctor’s legacy will remain forever and is incalculable.

Since November 1980, Ruy Pérez Tamayo has been part of the National College, it was 42 years in which he had the opportunity to collaborate with this great character, for this reason it was an almost obligatory tribute.

Doctor Julio Frenk was in charge of remembering his biography “We are here to remember one of the great figures of Mexican medicine”, at just 32 years old, in 1956 he had already founded the Pathology Unit of the General Hospital, which revolutionized this specialty in our country.

In 1974 he was distinguished with the National Prize for Sciences and Arts, but his fame exceeded his professional circle, as he became a writer, with his articles for popularizing science and his books, the doors of intellectual and literary circles in Mexico were opened. .

As a scientist, he studied the mechanisms of collagen fiber formation, which advanced fundamental knowledge about liver cirrhosis and other diseases, as well as healing processes. He dedicatedly studied amoebiasis and the cellular mechanisms that give rise to its characteristic lesions. “His book, Mechanisms of Disease, is one of the two medical texts written by a Latin American that are part of the bibliography for medical students in the United States.”

He was also a prominent member of numerous national and international medical and scientific societies, his compulsive desire was a kind of disease, he wrote in medical, literary and general journals, he did so on topics such as the evolution of the concept of disease, of the history of science, the scientific method, healthcare medicine, medical ethics or the French revolution. It was his “incurable mania for writing, whose main symptom was the horror of the blank page.”

An outstanding conversationalist, Adolfo Castañón remembers him: “He was an outstanding conversationalist capable of telling uncomfortable truths with the elegance of a samurai.”

“He enriched the world in which he lived”

In the event to remember Pérez Tamayo, a review of his different facets was made, as a disseminator, as a scientist, as a member of the Mexican Academy of Language, the College of Bioethics and the National College itself.

The participation of Dr. Miguel Reyes-Mujica, a disciple of Pérez Tamayo, stood out. “The avalanche of presents that I received from this authentic universal man was enormous. I affirm that without expecting anything in return, he received me in his life with simplicity, affection, joy and generosity ”.

As a privileged witness, he recounts that in his pathology course not only did he learn about the subject, scientific curiosity was also promoted and the general culture of the students was fed. “Life in the research laboratory was very stimulating as we constantly learned about the science related to our work, but also about cultural elements”.

“We traveled the world together, sharing moments in Brazil and Spain, Panama and Nicaragua, Peru and multiple places in Mexico, we climbed pyramids, shared food and drinks, exchanged hundreds of books, talked every Saturday for the last few years until just two weeks before. of his death”.

And how could Reyes-Mujica not travel from the United States for this tribute, if he shared his anecdote about the time that in 2017, on the occasion of his acceptance speech as president of the Society for Pediatric Pathology, Dr. Pérez Tamayo traveled to his 93 years without company to San Antonio Texas for the act, and not only that, because at the end of the banquet, accompanied by a mariachi, the doctor “sang ‘Mexico cute and dear’, showing affection and solidarity to the Mexican community.”

He concluded by saying that “Ruy enriched the world in which he lived and he did so with intelligence, dignity, sobriety and elegance, he showed us how a life can be exemplary, valuable, productive and happy, his example remains for the generations that follow him and if someone emulates him, he will not regret it. I know what is not easy, but as he himself said: “The difficult only costs more work.”

At the end of the commemoration, the academic María Isabel Pérez Montfort, daughter of Dr. Ruy Pérez Tamayo, unveiled the portrait of the collegiate, the work of the painter Alberto Castro Leñero.

nelly.toche@eleconomista.mx