Archibald Leman Cochrane 1909?1988: a meaningful life in science and history

Abstract

Andre Breton, and the surrealist movement, called a livreobjet, a book that was a piece of art in its form and not only in its content (Picture 1). Xavier Bosch has produced a wonderful livre-objet on Archie Cochrane, entitled: “Archibald Cochrane: back to the front” (Picture 2) (Bosch 2003). It has pictures, testimonies, citations of historians and novelists. The book is a passionate tribute to Archie Cochrane, the British epidemiologist whose name has become the rallying point of people throughout the world who collaborate to prepare, maintain, and disseminate systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. The title “Back to the front” may sound surprising for the biography of an epidemiologist. Which front? Which battle? Actually, there were many fronts and many battles in Cochrane‘s life. The first took place in 1937 Catalonia, when Cochrane joined the Republicans to fight the anti-democratic army led by General Bahamonde Franco. This was a very dramatic moment in European history. In the 1930s, Hitler had seized power in Germany, and Mussolini in Italy. Franco, following their path, was attempting to defeat the young Spanish Republic. The leftist parties, mainly the communists, organized groups of volunteers to go and fight on the side of the republicans. Others went to Spain spontaneously. Between the autumn of 1936 and the autumn of 1938, about 50 000 volunteers joined these International Brigades. Their premises were right. At the very beginning of his military rebellion, Franco would have had no chance to overthrowing the young Republic had he not had massive help from the fascist governments in