José Ignacio Barraquer Moner (24 January 1916 – 13 February 1998) was a Spanish ophthalmologist and inventor born in Barcelona who did most of his life's work in Bogotá, Colombia.
His original pioneering investigations on corneal transplants and correction of corneal refraction led him to be designated as “Father of modern Refractive Surgery”. His ophthalmological surgical techniques and inventions are now in routine use by the ophthalmic community.
Biography
He was born in Barcelona, first son of Ignacio Barraquer (March 25, 1884 – May 13, 1965) and Josefa Moner Raguer (1893-1987).
His grandfather, José Antonio Barraquer i Roviralta (1852-1924) was a pioneer of modern ophthalmology in Spain and a great histopathologist, and the brother of Lluis Barraquer i Roviralta (1855-1928), a pioneer of neurology and the founder, in 1882, of the first department of clinical neurology and electrotherapy in Spain; his son Lluis Barraquer Ferré (1887-1959) and his grandson Lluis Barraquer Bordas (1923-2010) were also famous neurologists.
Jose Ignacio Barraquer's father was a prestigious ophthalmologist in his own right due to the invention of phacoeresis, a surgical procedure for cataract extraction. He educated his son in arts and sciences since early childhood, helping him to become an inventor, a scientist and a skillful surgeon.
He studied medicine in the University of Barcelona and graduated 1940; in 1952 he obtained his doctorate in medicine and surgery at the University of Madrid. He trained in ophthalmology under the mentorship of his father, but also spent time visiting the most famous ophthalmic professors around Europe.
In 1938, towards the end of the Spanish Civil War, he married Margarita Coll Colomé in Granada (deceased 1984), where the family had been living during the war years. They had four children: Ignacio (born 1938–2012), Francisco (1940-2020) ophthalmologist, Margarita (born 1941) and Carmen (born 1946) ophthalmologist and refractive surgeon at "Clinica Barraquer".
In 1940 the family moved back to Barcelona and what is now the Centro de Oftalmología Barraquer, was inaugurated in 1941; José Ignacio continued to work with his father until 1953 when he left Spain to start an independent career in ophthalmology. He decided to settle in Bogotá, Colombia, after having traveled all around South America as an invited lecturer and surgeon.
He founded the Instituto Barraquer de América in 1964, his own Clínica Barraquer in 1968 and the Escuela Superior de Oftalmología within the Instituto Barraquer de América in 1977.
He married Inés Granados in 1985, mother of his fifth child Jose Ignacio Barraquer Granados (born 1965) ophthalmologist and refractive surgeon at "Clinica Barraquer".
Nowadays Jose's legacy, Clinica Barraquer of America is a reference center for ophthalmology and refractive surgery around the world. His dream of developing ophthalmology and refractive surgery is continued by his descendants Carmen Barraquer and Jose Ignacio Barraquer Granados among other great ophthalmologists that are in the clinic which had the opportunity to learn from the “Father of modern Refractive Surgery”.
Research and development
In his first ophthalmological article, published in 1942, he presented his first ophthalmological instrument, the Barraquer Keratotome with pneumatic fixation which he created to perform more precise cataract incisions.
From then until 1950, he published 56 articles among which the most notable are Air injection in the anterior chamber in cataract surgery (1946), Histiotherapy (1948),Curare in Ocular surgery (1949), Current selection technique in Keratoplasty (1949) in which he described the “edge to edge” suturing technique in penetrating grafts, routinely used in corneal grafts since then; and Refractive Keratoplasty (1949), his first article on the optical theory to correct myopia and hyperopia by modifying the anterior corneal radius of curvature, published in Spanish, English, French and German.
In Colombia, he continued his research and developments in corneal transplants, refractive keratoplasty and lens surgery. In 1956 he published The microscope in ocular surgery and The continuous edge to edge suture in full thickness grafts ; he designed and built several new surgical instruments like the hemostatic forceps, cataract scissors, trephines for corneal grafts and the “colibri blefarostat (hummingbird belpharostat) for anterior segment surgery”. This last instrument was an idea of his first pupil in Bogotá, Enrique Ariza Henao, and was described in the journal “Archivos de la Sociedad Americana de Oftalmología y Optometría” that he started in 1958.