The SLACKSTONE II^® ampoules, used to prepare Dialytic Water are just one of the wide range of ingenious inventions the Rev. Fr. José Ignacio Martín-Artajo Alvarez SJ gave science. A tireless worker, creative by nature and especially concerned with finding solutions for problems affecting people's well-being, this real genius, unjustly forgotten by history, was outstanding in a broad spectrum of disciplines, above all engineering and electrical engineering.

He was born in Madrid, April 13, 1904, and from early infancy it was clear he had an aptitude for study and research. He finished his secondary education in the Colegio Areneros Madrid at the age of 15, and in 1925, at the age of 21, he obtained his engineering degree from I.C.A.I. receiving the second highest grade in his class. On July 15 of the same year he joined the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He studied philosophy in Granada and Oña from 1929 to 1931 and for the next two years was employed as a teacher at the Spanish Club in Liége. In 1934, he was awarded an engineering diploma from L'Ecole Superieur d'electricité in Paris. From 1934 to 1938 he studied theology in Marneff and Valkenburg, where he was ordained as a priest on June 24, 1937. From 1939 to 1971 he worked as a teacher of electrical engineering at the I.C.A.I., and in 1945 and 1946 he imparted classes on the same subject at the Navy Armament School of the Navy Ministry.

He lectured in Europe and America, and in the United States he was made a Fellow Member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and founded the American Hispanic Technological Fund (A.H.T.F.) in New York. He was also an Academician of the Academia de Doctores (Academy of Doctors). Thanks to his mastery of French, English and German he was able to introduce state-of-the-art techniques into Spanish engineering. He modernized the Electrical Engineering, Resistance of Materials, Machine Tools and Thermal and Hydraulic Machines laboratories as well as designing and building a new Electrical Machine Lab. He was also the author of numerous books and papers.

His prolific mind continually produced new ideas. He created a wide range of apparatuses and, spurred on by the painful consequences of pathologies involving crystalline bodies, he invented the SLACKSTONE II^® ampoules used in the preparation of Dialytic Water.

In 1966 he won the Premio de García Cabrerizo for Technical Investigation and later on, in 1978, he was awarded the Silver Medal for the SLACKSTONE II^® ampoules used in the preparation of Dialytic Water at the 7th International Fair for Inventors and New Techniques in Geneva.

This brilliant, intelligent, hard-working, pleasant man, talented at poetry and the humanities, and with a natural gift for human relations, passed away in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) December 13, 1984. Everyone lucky enough to know this man recognized his truly exceptional talent.

 

 

The Rev. Fr. José Ignacio Martín-Artajo Álvarez SJ, as a young man and in old age.

 

The Rev. Fr. Antonio M. Arroyo SJ, who worked with Padre Martín-Artajo for many years.

Daniel J. Yborra Quesada, manufacturer of the System.

 

Note:
Until 1988 the SLACKSTONE^® ampoules were sold in boxes containing one single phial. However, this format was then changed and boxes now contain two phials, hence the change in name to SLACKSTONE II^®.