History of Latin American Dermatology

NOTES ON THEHISTORY OFDERMATOLOGYIN PARAGUAYJULIO CORREAA manera de prólogo■ By way of prefaceOur continent, versatile and mysterious whichever way you look at it, bears within ita plethora of manifestations which through the indigenous people who have settled here,and still populate it, constitute the extremely rich legacy of the development of medicinein all latitudes of the Americas, with testimonial expressions conserved in sculptures,pottery and inscriptions that show skin-related diseases, among others. Undoubtedly,contributions from Mexican, Colombian, Peruvian, Chilean and Argentine authors,among so many other countries that make up the Latin American confraternity, will ratifythis concept beyond any shadow of doubt.I have preferred to call this work simply “Notes on the History of Dermatology inParaguay” due to the magnitude of this subject which encompasses years of developmentof numerous civilizations, mainly in the Pre-Columbian era and especially of the Tupí-Guaraní race; these inhabitants of a large part of the South American territory in thosetimes, unfortunately, have left scarce testimonies through their craftwork of the extraordinaryknowledge that they had about the healing properties of plants. Fortunately, however,some facts have been gathered by diligent observers such as the conquistadors, theJesuits, schooled indigenous people, and numerous researchers and academics who arrivedin this land, and through remarkable research work confirmed the extraordinarycognitive development of the native people of this continent.Paraguay, a landlocked country with an extremely rich and surprising history, priorto the conquest extended into the territories that today are part of Brazil and Argentina,with borders with Peru and Bolivia; but it began to dismember during colonial times, dueto clashes between the Portuguese and Spaniards; in the first case, mainly due to thebandeirantes, Paulista pillagers, driven by their interest to enslave cheap labor; in thesecond, due to neglect of those vast territories. And after independence, the bloody warendured by Paraguay — known as the war of the Triple Alliance (Brazil, Argentina, andUruguay) — between the years 1865 and 1870, mutilated the territory even further, and283