History of Latin American Dermatology

ELBIO FLORES-CEVALLOS, LUIS FLORES-CEVALLOS, ZUÑO BURSTEINLima’s Dos de Mayo Hospital was inaugurated on February 28, 1875, as one of thelargest and most modern hospital treatment centers of its time, with a team of professionalswho, while fulfilling their treatment activities, were professors at the UNMSMMedical School.This great hospital center has played an important role in the history of Peruvianmedicine, not only because the pathology from all the regions of Peru was collected there(being a referral and treatment-concentration center at the national level), but also becauseall Peruvian doctors studied there, embracing many university research and facultyteams, at first just from the UNMSM, and later from other universities.At this hospital, as of 1950, Dr. Zuño Burstein initially worked as intern, then as assistantin the Pathology Department, and, starting in 1957, as assistant in the DermatologyService, in the St. Lazarus ward, whose head was Dr. Arturo Salas, professor of Dr.Loret de Mola’s Chair of Dermatology and, also, Head of the Dermatology Service of thePolice Hospital, among other posts. At that Service, Drs. Oscar Romero and Abelardo Tejadaalso worked as free assistants; the latter subsequently moved to the UNMSM Instituteof Tropical Medicine, where he is currently the Director; Drs. Marcial Ríos and LuisRomero, members of Dr. Loret de Mola’s Chair of Dermatology and Syphilography, alsoattended.At that time, the head of the Hospital’s Central Laboratory was Dr. Félix Castillo; theMicrobiology Laboratory was headed by Dr. Julio Morales Saravia, and Dr. Rafael Acostawas in charge of mycological diagnoses and research. The head of the Pathology Department,a university teaching and treatment unit, created by Dr. Pedro Weiss, was Dr.Oscar Arteaga; outstanding professionals, such as Dr. Hugo Lumbreras (a tropicalist,later founder of the Alexander Von Humboldt Institute of Tropical Medicine), among others,worked there, and tropical dermatological pathology (Peruvian wart, leishmaniasis,leprosy, deep mycoses, and others) was intensively studied there. The university-levelClinics Laboratory, headed by Dr. Vitaliano Manrique, provided support to the facultywork. This is how a support structure for the diagnosis and thorough research of nationalpathologies was rounded out at the Dos de Mayo Hospital.On January 1, 1962, the Protozoology and Mycology Research Laboratory was addedto the hospital, as a dependency of the UNMSM’s Chair of Tropical Medicine, headed byDr. Zuño Burstein, Assistant Professor of Tropical Medicine and Dermatology at theUNMSM.With this hospital base, in early 1962, the university-level academic activity was establishedand opened for medical students, under the coordination of Dr. Zuño Burstein,at the new Chair of Dermatology and Syphilography of the UNMSM’s St. Ferdinand MedicalSchool at the Dos de Mayo Hospital, with Dr. Clement Counter (a U.S. dermatologist)as professor in charge, and involving a faculty made up of Drs. Abelardo Indacochea,Zuño Burstein, Raúl Gallarday, César Rojas, Juan Manrique and Humberto Benavides asassistant professors; Enrique Sifuentes, Wenceslao Castillo, Pedro Ortiz, Carlos Regaladoand Juan Meza as head instructors; and Julio Bonilla, Humberto Ugaz and Dante Mendozaas collaborators.Drs. Luis Castro Mendívil, Hugo Pesce, Julio Bedoya, Wilfredo Gardini, Oscar Romeroand Félix Castillo participated as invited professors. Thus began a new multidisciplinarystage, including venereology, allergy, pediatric dermatology, pathological anatomy, mycology,physical therapeutics, radiotherapy and other physical procedures according tothe specialized orientation of the faculty taken on, which allowed for the modernizationof professional teaching and practice.Late that same year (1962), Dr. Aizic Cotlear was brought into the faculty throughcompetition, as Associate Lecturer; Dr. Cotlear set up and for many years led the modernDermatology School of the UNMSM’s St. Ferdinand Medical School at the Dos deMayo Hospital, which had the responsibility of granting the first Specialist in Dermatology334