Doctor Francisco Tongio Liongson is one the almost forgotten patriotic Filipino scientists . In fact the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) does not mention him in its biographies of Filipino scientists. The Senate of the Philippines official history has something on him as a politician, for he became Senator in 1916, but hardly mentions his scientific contribution. Yet he is seen in almost all “group photos” of the Ilustrados in Madrid together with those we remember. Jose Rizal, Marcelo H Del Pilar, the Luna brothers. Liongson was a propagandist who studied for his doctorate in medicine in Madrid, defending his thesis entitled “La Celula Ante Microbio” in 1895. He was the second Filipino medical research scientist to have graduated from the Complutense. The first one was the enfant terrible Antonio Luna who defended his thesis in 1893. Luna and Liongson worked in the same research institute, Institute Pasteur in Paris under the mentorship of Elie Metchnikoff, the fathe
"It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved" - Galileo