Ramón Grau

Ramón Grau San Martín (1881 to 1969) was a Cuban physician who is remembered mainly as a politician. He was born in 1881 to a wealthy tobacco-growing family, and although his father wanted him to continue in the business, he chose medicine instead. He studied at the University of Havana, graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1908, and then went to Europe to extend his medical knowledge. After returning to Cuba in 1921 he became a professor of physiology at the University of Havana, and in the 1920s he became involved in the student protests against President Gerardo Machado, was jailed in 1931 and was then exiled to the United States. After the 1933 revolution he served briefly as President of Cuba, and he held the office again from 1944 to 1948. The Medicine Atlas records him as a physician and physiology professor whose later public career lay outside medicine.