When he was young he signed up in the army to fight against Carlins. He started studying medicine in Barcelona in 1871, but he quitted the studies three years later.
He moved to Madrid (1875) where he worked as a journalist. In 1880 he published an intuitive work on circulation mechanisms; he questioned Letamendi theories. Thanks to Jaume Pi i Sunyer he went back to Barcelona (1884) and worked in the Laboratori Microbiològic Municipal, that was directed by Ferran. Later Turró fell out with Ferran because of differences in their opinion of scientific rigour. In 1894 he became a member of the Acadèmia de Medicina de Barcelona, and in 1897 he was the director of the bacteriology courses that were organised by the Acadèmia and the Laboratori de Ciències Mèdiques. In 1906 he was nominated director of the Laboratori Microbiològic. He presided the Acadèmia de Medicina and Laboratori Microbiològic (1908-1910). He was nominated member of Institut d’Estudis Catalans (1911) and was one of the founders of the Societat de Biologia de Barcelona (1912), institution that he presided from 1920 to 1924. He was also member and the president of the Societat Catalana de Filosofia. He intensively collaborated with August Pi i Sunyer. He introduced in Spain the experimental method of Claude Bernard, and in Catalunya he was the first that studied the internal secretions. He worked basically in bacteriology, physiology and immunology. He elaborated a philosophic theory of the origins of knowledge that published in Els orígens del coneixement: la fam (1912).
Main works
- Mecanismo fisiológico de la inmunidad natural (1909)
- Auf natürlichen Wege entstandene Bakteriolisine (1909)
- Sur les proprietés bactériologiques des tissus (1909)
- Els orígens del coneixement: la fam (1912)
- La criteriologia de Jaume Balmes (1913)
- Filosofia crítica (1913)
- Diàlegs sobre coses d’art i ciència (1913)
- Els orígens de la representació de l’espai tàctil (1913)
- La mèthode objective (1916)
- La base tròfica la intel·ligència (1917)
- La disciplina mental (1924)
- Tres diàlegs sobre la filosofia de l’estètica i la ciència (edició pòstuma 1947)
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