History of Latin American Dermatology

JOSÉ G. DÍAZ ALMEIDA, ALFREDO ABREU DANIELFigure 1.Raimundo G.Menocal(1856-1917)held in Havana on that date says literally, “The Aldermen or inhabitants of this city saidthat it had come to their knowledge that in it there are four or six people affected by theDisease of St. Lazarus, who have arrived from outside, and who promenade along thestreets with great harm and damage in the city for its inhabitants because it is an infectiousdisease” 4 .The incidence of leprosy began to rise and new cases began to appear among thecity’s inhabitants, as well as among newly arrived Spaniards and African slaves, whichworried the authorities. In Cabildo records after March 10, 1662, the Agreement isrecorded to “set aside a hut” to gather those who suffer the infectious Disease of St.Lazarus 5 .In 1840, the publication of medical journals began in Havana, which included numerousarticles on Dermatology.In 1873 the first government initiative took place that demonstrates the concern ofthe sanitary officials of that time over venereal diseases: the so-called Hygiene Hospitalwas founded and, in the face of alarm over the number of prostitutes existing in Havana,the first regulation of prostitution was issued, a Special Regulation of Public Hygiene6 .In November 1879, at the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences inHavana, the Cuban sage Carlos Juan Finlay participated in an in-depth debate on theinfection and compulsory isolation of leprosy patients 7 .During the nineteenth century, syphilography definitively became part of Dermatologythanks to the unsurpassable work of Ricard and Fournier, founders of clinicalsyphilography 8 .At the end of the century (1899) Dr. Raimundo G. Menocal was appointed professorof Surgical Clinical Medicine at the Havana University Medical School; his subjectincluded what is today the field of Dermatology which includes leprosy and syphilis 9(Figure 1).■ Period The Bourgeois of the Liberal Bourgeois RepublicLiberal Republic (1902-1958)In 1901, in the midst of the United States intervention, Prof. Raimundo G. Menocalwas put in charge of the Chair of Dermatology and Syphilography which had just beencreated with the launching of the education reform known under the name of VaronaPlan.Prof. Raimundo G. Menocal was born in 1856 in San Felipe, San Antonio de las Vegas.He studied at the University of Madrid and took a degree at the Zaragoza Medical School in1876, attaining a doctorate that same year at Havana University. His experience in Dermatologywas attested by his work at the Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, alongside outstandingprofessors of the glorious period of French Dermatology in the nineteenth century.He collaborated with the fatherland’s independence founding the “Oscar Primelles”Revolutionary Club in the city of New York. He launched the teaching of Dermatology inthe year 1903, offering complementary courses, lasting three months, for medical students,in what may be regarded as the first dermatological teaching activity on record inCuba 10 . A man of great pedagogical mastery and vast medical culture, he is regarded asone of the pioneers of Latin American Dermatology.Menocal performed his teaching activities at the old Our Lady of Mercies Hospital(founded in 1886), the heir of the Royal Hospital of St. Philip and Santiago, also knownas St. John of God (founded in 1598) 11 (Figure 2). At the Mercies Hospital he created thefirst mycology laboratory that existed in Cuba and organized a museum of wax modelswhere very faithful reproductions of diverse dermatological diseases were exhibited.In 1906, the Hospital No. 1 (currently General Calixto García University Hospital)152