History of Latin American Dermatology

HISTORY OFARGENTINEDERMATOLOGYPABLO A. VIGLIOGLIA, ALBERTO WOSCOFFThe colonial period■ The colonial periodIn 1780, shortly after the creation of the Viceroyalty of the River Plate, a Royal Decreewas proclaimed: “Having been informed of the disorderly ways and abuses in the exerciseof Medicine, Surgery, Pharmacy and Phlebotomy connected with them, particularlyin the provinces at a distance from this capital, I have decided, for the time being, to createa Port Tribunal, such as exist in the cities of Lima and Mexico, with the same powers,prerogatives and exceptions, so that by this means, which thus conforms to the law,the disorder will be corrected and rooted out. I have decided to choose and appoint Dr.Miguel O´Gorman, who gathers the parts and processes qualities necessary to be Protomédico(exercising judicial oversight over physicians) and Alcalde mayor (with executivepower) over all the respective professors...” As of that moment we had the firstphysician and rector in what was to be become Argentina.In 1803 “a decree against medicine men” was issued and in December of that yearthe posts of physicians and surgeons certified to exercise the profession were awarded.The dawn of argentine Dermatology■ The dawn of Argentine DermatologyThree decades later, in 1835, Dr. Tiburcio Fonseca published a thesis on “Structure,role and link with general pathology and therapeutics of the cutaneous organ.” In its 35pages he dealt with skin diseases in a scientific way, with this, Argentina became a pioneeramong Latin American countries in this regard.In 1874, the Academy of Medicine which oversaw the Medical School included somespecialized areas among its curriculum, among them “Clinical medicine of skin diseasesand syphilis,” and in 1875 appointed Drs. Leopoldo Montes de Oca and L. Meléndez asfull and associate professors; afterwards, when these latter were appointed to other subjects,the field continued to form part of Anatomic Pathology.At the Hospital de Clínicas in Buenos Aires, where all teaching activity was concentrated,a Syphilis and Dermatology Service was established. In March 18, 1892, the rectorof the Medical School, M. González Catán, founded the chair of Venereal and SkinDiseases, which was to be taught in the 4 th year of medical studies. The first professorwas Baldomero Sommer (Figure 1), who set up the chair at the San Roque HospitalFigure 1. Prof.Baldomero Sommer31