[Miguel Gayarre (1866-1936) and neurology in Madrid: a contribution to his biography].

Miguel Gayarre y Espinal (1886-1936) is considered to be, together with Achúcarro, one of the most scientifically influential persons on Lafora, and hence on the so-called Madrid Neurological School preceding the Spanish Civil War (late XIX and first third of the XX century). There is, however, a great deal of scarcity about personal biographic data on Gayarre. We document herein that Gayarre, after graduation, achieved his doctoral degree at the age of 29 by discoursing on a non-neurological subject (On essential paroxysmal tachycardia). It was only afterwards when Gayarre decided to become a pupil of Oppenheim, considered at the time to be a "pure" neurologist, in Berlin. His return to Spain might had been prompted following rejection to Oppenheim on the basis of creed and race to take the chair at La Charité Hospital after Westphal death. Although Lafora considered him "an excellent neurologist", Gayarre, as most other members of the Madrid Neurological School, combined his practice with Neurohistopathology as a student of Achúcarro, and with Psychiatry, to become Director of the Ciempozuelos Hospital for the Insane in Madrid.