History of Latin American Dermatology

History of Dermatology in Guatemalathe Province of Guatemala, later turning into the name of the Court and Kingdom whoseborders ranged from Chiapas to Costa Rica 7 .Since 1847 the name Guatemala has only designated the Republic, the Departmentand the Capital. If the names of Mexican origin borne by many localities are only freetranslations of the original Quiché, Tzutujil or Cakchiquel appellations, and if its knownthrough the statements of the principals of Santiago Atitlán, made in 1583, that in thelanguage of the native inhabitants the city was called Cakchiquil – which in Mexican istranslated as Cuautemala – it is possible to conclude that the etymological meaning of theword Guatemala is the same as that of the Cakchiquel term 8 .In the Record of Solalá it is stated: “when we arrived at the doors of Tulán we wentto receive a red stick which was our oracle, hence we were given the name of Cakchiquel,that is to say, the men of the red stick.”The Popol Vuh says the following: “right away they gave their name to the Cakchiquel;Gagchequelab was their name.” Which means those of the red tree or of fire. Therefore theword “Cakchiquel” was translated into the Mexican Cuauhtemallan which was rendered intoSpanish as Guatemala which could mean: the place of the men of the red tree or stick or of fire.Dermatology during the Conquest■ Dermatology during the ConquestOn December 6, 1523, Pedro de Alvarado left Tenochtitlán, the capital of the Aztecempire just conquered by Hernán Cortés, his mission being to subject Utatlán and Cuauthemallanto the Spanish crown. There were one hundred and twenty horsemen, threehundred foot soldiers, one hundred and thirty crossbowmen and musketeers, four artillerypieces with much powder and munitions and an auxiliary force of Mexican warriors,Culhúa and Tlaxcaltec.The diseases that struck the conquerors were innumerable. Some were native to theareas they were subjecting, others were brought by themselves from the old continent,and they were added as biological weapons to the horses, swords, cannon, lances, musketsand crossbows to terrorize and subject the Indians.Curiously, in order to heal war wounds they used the fat of a dead Indian as well asmedicinal plants whose use they learned in the Americas, since the Europeans lacked theknowledge possessed by the native physicians.Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the famous chronicler, tells us about the diseases suffered bythe conquerors; for example, he writes: “after we had settled there three or four months,there was a plague, of which many soldiers died, and in addition to this all the rest of ussuffered and had bad sores on our legs.” We can deduce that they suffered an epidemic,and the bad sores on the legs probably were ecthyma. They must have suffered multiplebites from insects such as mosquitoes, flies, horseflies and ticks and possibly lice.Mosquito plagues are mentioned by the chroniclers Bernal Díaz del Castillo, FranciscoAntonio de Fuentes y Guzmán and Friar Francisco Ximénez.Other very frequent dermatoses suffered by the conquerors were simple sores or ulcers,a consequence of overinfected stings, and buboe; the latter have encompassedmany ailments like syphilis, frambesia, simple adenitis and small abscesses in the skin.In Bernal Díaz’s narrative it doesn’t appear to be a case of syphilis, or frambesia, butmultiple abscesses and secondary adenitis of stings and lesions from scratching; popularlyit was mentioned that “they have an ill humor” if a wound became infected, or thatthey had a “nuisance” or “buboe” if there was adenitis. This is what Bernal Díaz refersto, i.e. to piodermitis.There was a curious method of treatment employed by Spanish doctors of that period,as was described. “the physicians ordered that he suckle a woman of Castille.” We knowthat women’s milk contains antibodies and this may have helped the patient.231