History of Latin American Dermatology

History of Dermatology in Perumeans “ulcer”) with sarsaparilla and guaiacum. When the sarsaparilla juice is drunkfresh, the cure is certain, one cannot but be healed 3 .According to the chroniclers, syphilis was taken to Europe by the conquistadors ontheir first trip back to Spain. Syphilis appeared for the first time in Europe in Naples, in1494, and was therefore called “the Neapolitan disease.” It appeared as a mysteriousand unknown epidemic which spread rapidly, provoking great malaise among the population,since no cure was known. Its name appeared for the first time in the literature in1530; a doctor from Verona, Girolano Fracastore, wrote a pastoral poem and gave thefearful disease the name of the shepherd.For a long time, the conviction existed that syphilis originated in the Americas. However,recent studies conducted by a group of English archeologists have shown that twothirdsof the skeletons of priests, noblemen and rich merchants buried in the crypt of anAugustine abbey, in the port of Hull, in northwestern England, presented typicalsyphilitic lesions. These researchers carried out archeological studies of bones in variousMiddle Age Roman cemeteries, and found evidence of hereditary syphilis in children,with the typical Hutchinson jagged teeth. They concluded that syphilis existed in Europebefore the discovery of America.Peruvian wartThe pre-Incaic Moche, Chimú, Vicús and Chancay cultures flourished along the northerncoast of Peru between the firstcentury B.C. and the thirteenth century A.D., in thepresent-day areas of Piura, Lambayeque, La Libertad and Lima. In their numerous potterypieces (portrait jars), they have left graphic representations of external skin lesionsproduced by dermatological diseases, among which is the Peruvian wart.This ceramic piece (Figure 3) undoubtedly shows the typical lesions of the Peruvianwart in its warty stage, and constitutes a true medical book on this disease left to us bythe ancient Peruvian cultures.LeishmaniasisThe Moche-Chimú cultures have left pottery pieces with graphic testimonies that thePeruvian wart and tegumentary leishmaniasis were associated with legendary myths ofpotato cults. Some Mochica huacos show potato buds, simulating vulvas,from which grow warty and uta-affected faces. Other pieces representscenes of the sowing and harvest of the potato, in which the humanizedface of the potato presents uta and warty nodule mutilations (Figure 4).Skin leishmaniasis of the uta kind and the Peruvian wart are endemicin the gorges of the Andean valleys. Pedro Weiss has carried outa careful study of these pottery pieces that depict the potato with utaand wart lesions linked to the sexual organs, with which the ancient Peruviansmarked the correlation between the uta and the wart, the fecundityof the soil of the Andean valleys and the fecundity of the women.The natives used resins to cure leishmaniasis 3 .Figura 4. Ceramicpiece of theMochica culture(leishmaniasis)Pustular facial diseasesThe Pottery piece of the Mochica culture (Figure 5), showing the headof a patient with deep lenticular scars on the face, nose, cheeks, chin,ears and (very few here) forehead. He has two large perforations in eachear-lobule, which probably indicates to us that he was probably an orejónwith a pustular facial disease that accounts for these deep point-likescars. Perhaps a case of serious pustular acne.305