Gaspar Casal

{{Short description|Catalan physician}}

{{Expand Spanish|topic=bio|Gaspar Casal|date=April 2021}}

File:El médico, Francisco de Goya.jpg

Gaspar Roque Francisco Narciso Casal Julian (31 December 1681 – 10 August 1759) was a Spanish physician remembered for describing the Casal collar in pellagra.

Casal was born in Girona Catalonia, Spain to Federico Casal y Dajón and Magdalena Julian. He grew up in Utrillas and is thought to have apprenticed at Atienza with Juan Manuel Rodriguez de Lima, an apothecary to Pope Innocent XI. He practiced medicine in Oviedo from 1720 to 1751, at which time he moved to Madrid as King Ferdinand's physician.Barry G. Firkin, Judith A. Whitworth. Dictionary of Medical Eponyms. Informa Health Care, 2001, page 60. {{ISBN|978-1-85070-333-4}}. He became a friend of Fr. Benito Feyjóo y Montenegro and Fr. Martin Sarmiento who encouraged his studies. He described pellagra in a book published in 1762, calling it mal de la rose due to the red rash seen on the hands and feet of sufferers.{{cite web|url=https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1095845-overview |first1=Vladimir |last1=Hegyi |first2=Dirk M |last2=Elston |title=Dermatologic Manifestations of Pellagra |website=Medscape |date=26 February 2018 |access-date=3 July 2020}} His “Historia affectionum quarundam regionis hujus familiarum” described scabies and treatment using sulfur ointment. He wrote on the natural history of Asturias which was published posthumously in 1762.{{Cite journal|last=Major|first=Ralph H.|date=1944|title=Don Gaspar Casál, François Thiéry and pellagra|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44442831|journal=Bulletin of the History of Medicine|volume=16|issue=4|pages=351–361|issn=0007-5140}}{{cite journal|author=Suarez, Venancio Martinez SUÁREZ|year=2009|title=La Historia natural y médica de Gaspar Casalen el 250.º aniversario de su muerte|url=https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/CESXVIII/article/download/12196/11210/23550|journal=Cuadernos de Estudios del Siglo|volume=18|issue=19|pages=243–255|language=es}}{{Cite journal|last=Piñero|first=López|last2=María|first2=José|date=August 2006|title=Gaspar Casal: Descripción ecológica de la pelagra, primera enfermedad carencial|url=http://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1135-57272006000400010&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=es|journal=Revista Española de Salud Pública|volume=80|issue=4|pages=411–415|issn=1135-5727}}

Casal married Maria Ruiz and had two sons. After her death he married Maria Álvarez Rodríguez Arango and had two more children.