History of Latin American Dermatology

Historical sketch of Chilean Dermatologydisappeared from the archives of the Medical Society of Santiago. The founding members,according to an ad hoc document requested in 1987 by the Board of the SCDV froma commission formed by Hernán Hevia, Eduardo Silvestre, Gastón Ramírez and AntonioMascaró, are believed to have been the following physicians: Cristián Barría Morales,Gustavo Bendeck, Raquel Bravo, Manuel Castellón, Juana Díaz Muñoz, Israel Drapkin,Rodolfo Frey Gabler, Julio González Chacón, Héctor González Rioseco, Victor Gianelli,Norberto Heins, Hernán Hevia Parga, Roberto Jaramillo Bruce, Néstor López Cortés, AntonioMascaró Blanco, Raúl Morales Beltramí, Luis Montero Riveros, Manuel Oporto Gatica,Gonzalo Pérez de Arce, Florencio Prats González, Luis Prunés Rissetti, GastónRamírez Bravo, Eduardo Sylvester Rasch, Luis Toro Genke, Bernardo Vaisman, MauricioWeinstein Rudoy and Daniel Yáñez Garrido.First historical phaseWe thus call the period extending between the SCDV’s founding and 1980, characterizedby activity in the form of periodic scientific meetings with the institutional backingof the Medical Society of Santiago (without other sustained societal roles), based on thegood will of its members and lacking in legal standing, bylaws, rules, regulations, headquartersand locatable secretariat archives and therefore in illustrative written data. Between1938 and 1985 the SCDV operated under the aegis of the legal standing of theMedical Society of Santiago, of which it was a branch; clinical/scientific meetings wereorganized once or twice a month, customarily held at the St. Louis Hospital and, after itsdissolution in 1972, at the José Joaquín Aguirre Hospital.In 1976 the SCDV began to hold the so-called Annual Session in the spring months.Lacking a physical venue of its own, the SCDV’s activities centered on the actual person ofthe president in office, who worked side by side with his secretary at their workplace (hospital).On occasions the president was his own secretary and personally handled the writtenand verbal information inherent in his mandate, which has been lost to this day.Presidents were appointed orally by the members for reasons of scientific weight or groupinfluence. Unfortunately the complete roster of SCDV presidents and their periods in officeduring this historical phase is unknown; neither have the records been kept of the boardor membership meetings, if such there were, nor the information regarding the handlersand participants in SCDV activities. Some data that have recently been recorded orally tellus that the first president of the SCDV and one of its main promoters was Luis Prunés Rissetti,who later was also elected president of the Medical Society of Santiago; anotherstrong pillar was Roberto Jaramillo Bruce. We know that the presidents included DanielYáñez Garrido (of the St. Louis Hospital) in 1945 (with Hernán Hevia Parga as secretary),Gastón Ramírez between 1946 and 1947 and Hernán Hevia between 1952 and 1953.Oral sources indicate that a partial roster of other presidents before 1938 includes LuisToro Genkel, Bernardo Vaisman, Joaquín Peragallo, Ricardo Sepúlveda, Mauricio WeinsteinRudoy, Héctor González Rioseco, Manuel Castellón, Florencio Prats González, GonzaloPérez de Arce and Ignacio González Díaz. Neither the order nor the duration of theirmandates is known. From 1958 on, the following physicians have been president: RogerLamas Grubesich (1958-1959), Samuel Abeliuk Raschokvan (1960-1961), Raúl AlarcónCasanueva (1962-1963), Oscar Klein Kohn (1964-1965), Isidoro Pasmanik Guiñerman(1968-1969), Pedro Cofré (1970-1972), Daniel Villalobos Toro (1972-1974), Alan RojasCanala (1974-1976), Oscar Klein Kohn (1976-1978) and Marco Antonio De la Parra Enríquez(1978-1980). The indicated duration of those mandates is only approximate.Transitional phaseBetween 1980 and 1986, a period in which the presidents were Julia Oroz Montiglio179