Tribute to Mirko Carreras, 1927-2005.

Tribute to Mirko Carreras: Prof. Carreras died on 23 March 2005 at the age of 77. In the last few years of his life, serious health problems restricted his autonomy and movement. In spite of this, and although he was already retired, he continued teaching in the new role to which he had been appointed by the Council of the Specialisation School of Neurology, which he founded and directed for just under 30 years. In this role, too, Prof. Carreras left his mark: generous, tenacious, punctual, stimulating in his ability to present and explain clinical method to his young students. In this last phase of his life as a teacher, his vast cultural background, which was not only academic, gave him free range in all fields; he was at home in subjects which brought together anatomy and physiology with philosophy and ethics, aetiopathogenesis of diseases with the humanistic sciences and art. He never hid the fact that he was ill; he may well have been aware of what was going to happen to him as he spoke about it and tried to weigh up his life both in terms of achievements and failures. However, the example he set and the enthusiasm he transmitted over the years make us feel his absence very deeply.