History of Latin American Dermatology

History of Dermatology in PeruDANIEL A. CARRIÓN INSTITUTE OF TROPICAL MEDICINE OF THE NATIONALHIGHER UNIVERSITY OF ST. MARK (UNMSM)In the mid 1950s, a group of young professionals from the Tropical Medicine Departmentof the UNMSM’s St. Ferdinand Medical School — headed by Professor Dr. HugoPesce — and from other academic scientific institutions had a meeting. They were hostedby Professor Dr. Enrique Encinas in his Laboratory of Neuropathological Research at theVíctor Larco Herrera Hospital, with the authorization and approval of its Director, Dr.Juan Francisco Valega. Among them was Dr. Hugo Lumbreras, who had been sent byProf. Encinas with the Alexander Von Humboldt scholarship to the Institute of TropicalMedicine in Hamburg, where, in coordination with Dr. Zuño Burstein in Lima, he arrangedthe trip to the Peruvian capital of professor Dr. Ernst Georg Nauck, head of thatInstitute, commissioned by the German government to determine the appropriateness ofGerman help — through an agreement with the Peruvian government — for the creationof an Institute of Tropical Medicine in Lima, at the UNMSM campus.That sponsoring group — which in 1963 made possible the creation of the Daniel A. CarriónInstitute of Tropical Medicine of the UNMSM — was made up of Doctor Olga Palacios,virologist physician, later head of that center for a long time; Dr. Zuño Burstein, tropicalistdermatologist, later appointed emeritus professor of the UNMSM; Dr. Hugo Lumbreras, tropicalistphysician, who created and up to his death headed the Alexander Von Humboldt Instituteof Tropical Medicine of the Cayetano Heredia Private University; Dr. Abelardo Tejada,tropicalist physician, who in 2003 was elected director of the UNMSM Institute; Dr. OscarRomero, tropicalist dermatologist, who was later head professor and head of the Chair ofDermatology of the UNMSM; Dr. César Náquira, microbiologist physician, who in 2004 wasappointed head of Peru’s National Health Institute, and other physicians of distinction.At present, the Daniel A. Carrión Institute of Tropical Medicine is a research, teaching,and health-staff training center, which provides specialized services aimed to thecommunity, and which, in addition to diagnostic laboratories for bacteriology, parasitology,entomology, mycology, virology and histopathology, has specialized units for researchinto toxoplasmosis, bartonellosis, leishmaniasis and leprosy, among others. It alsohas a service of Sanitary Dermatology handled by five dermatologists.The Daniel A. Carrión Institute of Tropical Medicine is a national referral center of internationalprestige, where professionals from abroad and from different parts of thecountry, as well as residents in Infectology, Tropical Medicine, Internal Medicine, Dermatologyand Clinical Pathology, not only from the UNMSM but also from other universities,arrive to receive training in Tropical Medicine.It maintains relations with the different universities of the country and from abroad,with the WHO Pan-American Sanitary Office, with the Institute of Tropical Medicine ofthe U.S. Navy (NAMRED), and has agreements with the Health Ministry in order to developcontrol programs for malaria, metaxenic diseases, hydatidosis, leprosy and otherSanitary Dermatology ailments.It has a modern four-story building, located on the St. Mark campus. It contains 40laboratories, 20 offices, outpatient offices, internship rooms for undergraduate and graduatestudents, an auditorium, the Hugo Pesce specialized library, and a room for lab animals(Figure 23).The Daniel A. Carrión Institute of Tropical Medicine issues a publication, the RevistaPeruana de Medicina Tropical, which is its official organ for scientific reporting.ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT INSTITUTE OF TROPICAL MEDICINE OF THE CAYETANOHEREDIA PERUVIAN UNIVERSITY (UPCH)In 1968, the UPCH, a private university, approved the creation of a new institute oftropical medicine in Lima, by the name of “Alexander Von Humboldt Institute of TropicalMedicine,” and appointed Dr. Hugo Lumbreras to organize it.337