In memoriam: Mirko Drazen Grmek, 9 January 1924-6 March 2000.

Abstract

At two o'clock every Thursday afternoon from November to June, some twenty people would climb Escalier E of the Sorbonne and venture through the doors of the École Pratique des Hautes Études, IVe Section, to the classroom at the end of the hall. On bare, noisy floorboards, with opaque windows on both sides, the tables and scraping chairs were arranged in a big U around a professorial desk, with a blackboard behind and a clock high to the left. The master would arrive for his seminar with papers and a pile of books. Tall, vigorous, with thinning grey hair and clear blue eyes, he would smile vaguely as he surveyed the assembly before launching into his presentation. He began with verbal reviews of new books, in French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, and ancient Greek. Had he actually managed to read them all since the seminar last week? It seemed that he had: his criticisms were comprehensive, incisive, and balanced. Then on to the topic for the week. He would talk until four o'clock, recounting the adventure of a single research project on some aspect of medical history, often quite minute. The scope and depth of his erudition were breathtaking. The topic could derive from an article he had already published (although he would not necessarily say where); less frequently, he would float new ideas from work in progress. The subject matter changed every week and every year (and it was rarely announced ahead of time), but antiquity and modern medicine tended to alternate from class to class--and the audience would change accordingly. Students (many of them foreigners) teachers, later-life learners, scientists, physicians, Sorbonne professors, and one peculiar bag lady slowly came to recognize (if not know) each other as regulars; they shook hands and said "Bonjour!" The faithful came every [End Page 561] week; those who attended alternate classes to satisfy special interests modestly claimed that it was their special ignorance that kept them away.