[1] He practised a wide range of traumatological and surgical techniques, both for war injuries and civil purposes, contributed to the modernisation of surgery in Spain and participated actively in the reorganisation of the Spanish Military Health system in the 1920s.

The second Rif War was at its peak at this point: the Spanish Army had suffered a series of dramatic defeats (Barranco del Lobo) and the medical services in Melilla were overwhelmed.

He stayed in Melilla for two years, first as surgeon's assistant during the six months of the campaign, and later also organizing the improvement of the equipment in mountain ambulances and instructing recruits in the Medical Corps.

He published his first paper in 1912, "The fight against infectious illnesses in campaign", analysing the techniques that Japanese doctors had successfully developed during the Russo-Japanese War and which he had applied in Melilla.

Pagés' prestige grew during his stay in Madrid and he was appointed to attend in several occasions Queen María Cristina, with whom he would develop a personal friendship.

In 1920 he was assigned to the Emergency Military Hospital in Madrid, although he was stationed briefly in Melilla in 1921 as a result of the Spanish colonial disaster of Annual, where he practiced hundreds of surgical interventions on injured troops.

In the article he explained the technique he had developed in order to be able to inject the anesthetics in the lumbar region, leaving the spinal canal untouched and without the need to reach complete anesthesia.

On 21 September 1923 he died in a traffic accident in Quintanapalla, near Burgos, while returning to Madrid with his family from their summer vacation in Cestona, near San Sebastián.

Only with the passage of time, an Argentinian scientific journal claimed recognition for the Spanish doctor, who was then given full credit by Dogliotti and the medical community.