He was born in Torroella de Montgrí on December 1, 1812, the son of Jaume Giró and Úrsula Aranols. The couple lived in Torroella, where their father worked as a tailor, and later the whole family moved to Figueres, their mother’s hometown, where Andreu studied primary and secondary education.

He was teacher of zoology in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in 1837; he became Professor of anatomy and physiology in the University of Madrid in 1843 and was one of the founders of the Société Entomologique of France.

He completed his studies in Barcelona. After returning to Mahon, he began measuring climate from the rooftop of his drugstore on Arraval street. He was also the first chemical inspector of the city’s municipal laboratory created in 1913 at the Civil Hospital, but he stood out as a meteorologist.

He was known as Huguet del Villar. When he was young he travelled around Latin America, when he came back, in 1900, he started his geographic and naturalist studies. 

In 1839 he began to study engineer in the army academy. In 1853, he published: Manual del pontonero and, in the same year, he became a member of the committee that had to made a map of Spain, this was how he began to be interested in geodesic science.

Joan Isern was born in Can Batlló de Setcases on September 25, 1821. During the 1849-50 academic year, in which he was taking the second year of Medicine, although he was already recognized for his knowledge of phytology, instructions were sent from Madrid to all the Spanish universities to propose candidates to occupy the position of botanical collector of the Museum of Natural Sciences. The University of Barcelona proposed the name of Joan Isern who went to Madrid, where he worked for more than a decade as collector and curator of the Museum and Royal Botanical Garden.

Member of the Acadèmia de Ciències i Arts (1914). He was a teacher in the school of Electricitat de la Universitat Industrial (1917) and Professor of the University of Barcelona from 1930 to 1951.

Nature lover and enthusiast from an early age, in 1934 he moved to Madrid to study pharmacy and studied botany with professor José Cuatrecasas. The Spanish Civil War interrupted his studies, which he continued in Barcelona once the dictatorship was established. Always interested in the cultural and scientific development of Granollers, he participated and worked in several of the city’s organizations and administrations.

In 1865 he began to publish his works about astronomy in specialised French journals as he was living in France during some years. He studied the solar eclipses that were visible from Spain in1900 and 1905.

He was president, between 1970 and 1974, of the Academy of Medical Sciences of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands.