History of Latin American Dermatology

ELBIO FLORES-CEVALLOS, LUIS FLORES-CEVALLOS, ZUÑO BURSTEINMAXIME KUCZYNSKI-GODARD (1890-1967) 14A German immigrant doctor, born in 1890, who contributed greatly to the study ofleprosy in the Peruvian Amazon. He studied medicine in Berlin, where he became Professorof Pathology; he conducted many medical missions around the world. In 1933, dueto Nazi racial laws, he gave up his chair and emigrated first to France and then toVenezuela. In 1936, he arrived in Peru, where he worked feverishly, in the beginningwith Carlos Enrique Paz Soldán at the Social Medicine Institute of the UNMSM, and laterat the Health Ministry. He was assigned important health responsibilities in the Jungle,and later in the Sierra, where he carried out and wrote about many scientific works,among which was his experimental self-inoculation with Peruvian wart, repeating Carrión’searlier experience; for this work he was named honorary member of the NationalAcademy of Medicine. In 1940, the Peruvian government created the Loreto and SanMartín health supervision service, which promptly grew into the Northeastern SupervisionService, headed by Maxime Kuczynski. After founding an anti-leprosy dispensary inIquitos in 1940, he reconstructed the San Pablo asylum as an agricultural colony, obtainingremarkable progress. He also undertook the exploration of many rivers, particularlythe Ucayali, conducting valuable leprosy surveys. He is credited with the firstobservations of leprosy among genuine jungle inhabitants in South America, which hecarried out among the Camo and Cocama tribes 17 .PROFESSIONAL GROUPSOther specialized areas of Medicine that have contributed to the knowledge and developmentof Dermatology in Peru have been related to allergy and immunology. In thisarea, some medical figures stand out, some of whom constituted true training schools forthis specialized field. One such case is the school headed by Dr. Emilio Ciuffardi at thePolice Hospital. Ciuffardi was also founder of the Peruvian Society of Immunopathologyand Allergy. He and Dr. Pedro Vargas Morales, founder of the Bronchial Asthma Society(both deceased), and his followers have contributed to the knowledge of allergic dermatologicaldiseases. In this area, the highly qualified Dermatology and Allergy service ofthe Employee’s Central Hospital (with Dr. Luis Flores 7 as head of the service) must bementioned. Also worthy of mention are Dr. Betteta’s Allergology School, at the 2 de MayoHospital, and the Specialized Institute of Immunology and Allergy run by his followers, agroup related with Dr. José Zegarra Pupi. It is also worth mentioning the contribution ofthe Allergy Service of the Children’s Hospital, headed by Dr. Enrique Drassinower. Allthese people, already deceased, have left followers who are currently linked to Dermatology.History of the teaching of Dermatology in PeruFormal university-level training in Dermatology began in Peru in the mid-twentiethcentury. Drs. Aurelio Loret de Mola and Pablo Arana (1930), Arturo Salas (1941), MarcialAyaipoma (1942), Amaro Urello and Víctor Gonzáles (1943) and Dr. Luis Flores(1947) were the first holders of the Dermatology and Syphilography chair at the St. FerdinandMedical School of the Archbishop Loayza Hospital.PIONEERING PROFESSORSAurelio Loret de Mola (1896-1968) 15Dr. Loret de Mola was a dermatologist who studied this branch of medicine in France,a pioneer in the teaching of Clinical Dermatology in Peru. (Figure 9) He was born in Limain 1896, and he took complete practical Dermatology and Venereology courses with ProfessorJeanselme at the Skin and Syphilitic Diseases Clinic of the Saint-Louis Hospital. He316