History of Latin American Dermatology

History of Dermatology among Argentine indigenous cultureshot springs, with boiling fumaroles, warm sources, the sulfur-rich effluvia that gave riseto warm and life-endowing bodies of water.During the pre-Inca period the inhabitants were already familiar, in the Cuyo region,with the Uyurmire and Inca baths, in the temple of Wiracocha (or Viracocha).Another spring close to Indian devotion, because of its legendary bounty and thevirtue of its sources, is that which arises in the locality of La Laja. According to Indianmythology, the Huarpe lover Yahue, after killing the sweet Tahue and her seducer, diedon the stony grounds of San Juan to redeem that tragedy; after his death, three miraculoussprings were to arise like a source of hope.Other natives of our territory likewise frequented diverse baths and springs. TheAraucanians visited Copahue and Futalauquen and also knew Cullu-co (acid waters) andLaguen-co (hot waters). The Indians who traveled through the province of Buenos Aireswere familiar with the Epecuén lagoon. According to Tomás Falkner, from time immemorialIndian chieftains and their families came to this place of tonic waters. Thelocal traditions hold that the Puelche chief Carhué (Pure Heart), an Epecuén enthusiast,was cured of a strange paralysis when he submerged himself in the great lake formed bythe tears of his beautiful beloved.The Diaguita of Talacasto also left their Indian travails behind through the sunscorchedlands of their ancestors a water source that arose from the ceaseless weepingof a handsome buck who saw his beloved die by cause of the atavistic hate toward theInca invaders. Inti-Yacu (waters of the sun) was the name given by the natives of centralArgentina to the current area of Río Hondo (Santiago del Estero), whose emergentcourses sprang up to give life to springs. The inhabitants linked the virtues of Yacurupay(hot waters) to the flaming rays of the sun, which they worshipped.Alonso Ovalle, in a book published in Rome in 1646, makes reference to the heat,healthiness and mineralization of the waters of Puente del Inca, without giving us its scientificexplanation. His text is a description of the landscape related to this monumentfound in the Andean foothills, with the author highly praising that curious natural form.According to Michel Horst von Brand, the first analysis of Argentine thermal waterwas carried out by the physicist and chemist Michael Faraday, in 1827, on samples takenfrom that spot.Villavicencio, according to travelers’ testimony, was visited by the celebrated naturalistCharles Darwin in 1839. The residents and neighbors of Mendoza had begun to gothere as far back as 1800 in search of its beneficial qualities.The group of the Andes and Central HillsThis is constituted by the Pehuenche, the Huarpe and the Comechingón Indians ofCórdoba, the Sanavirón of the Río Dulce or Río Negro, the Tonocoté of Santiago del Estero,the Lule and Vilela of Tucumán and the Araucanian Indians of the Andean foothills,all of them under Inca cultural influence.Medical botany■ The group of the Andes and Central HillsCanelo (Drymis winteri) (winter-bark tree): this belongs to the Magnoliaceae family.It is around 8 meters tall and usually grows on damp ground. It was introduced in Europeby John Winter, physician to the English pirate Francis Drake; hence its technicaldenomination. The bark of this tree was used in infusions and also for external applications.A sacred tree of the Mapuche, it was employed against ailments of the digestivesystems, parasitoses (scabies) and rheumatism. “The cinders flower” from this tree,mixed with fat as an excipient, was also used to remove body hair; for this reason,27