History of Latin American Dermatology

The Indians of Uruguay and their relationship with Dermatologyof 1515, drawn up the cartographer Schöner, which showed a strait that theoreticallycommunicated the southern seas 20 .Solís gave the name of “Sweet Sea” to the River Plate, where he would meet his deathat the hands of the Indians who inhabited the coasts of what is now Colonia, and whothen ate him. These Indians were not Charrúa, but Guaraní who engaged in cannibalismonly as a ritual practice, since sources of protein were very abundant in these territories,as was pointed out in the chronicles of travelers on describing the fauna and flora of theregion. Ritual cannibalism was practiced by Amazonian groups but not by Patagonianones 20, 21 .Starting with Solís’ arrival, we come into possession of chronicles that describe thelifestyle and customs of the Charrúa; here we shall mention the most important ones.In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan navigated the River of Solís, the name given to it inhonor of the fallen sailor. As from this voyage the name of Monte Vidi is recorded, a namewhich – according to one of the theories regarding the city’s appellation – would designateour capital, Montevideo, alluding to the hill (monte) found on the bay. (In 1502Vespucci had called it “Pinnaculum Detentio,” that is to say, of the stoppage or of temptation,depending on the translation favored). Magellan navigated along the UruguayRiver, where the Indians replenished his supplies. Unable to find the route to the treasure,he continued to the south and, along the strait that now bears his name, reachedthe Pacific 18 .In 1527, there arrived Sebastian Cabot, who founded the first settlement in Uruguayon the shores of the San Salvador River, and, as attested to by the chronicles, had contactwith the Indians.Diego García, in his memoirs (1526-1530), bequeathed one of the most valuable documentsfor the identification of the Charrúa nation.In his travel log (1530), Lope de Souza offered very interesting testimony about hiscontacts with the Charrúa, also describing the places, animals and plants of the region.In 1536, Pedro de Mendoza investigated the mouth of the Uruguay and of the Paraná.On the southwest coast, next to the Riachuelo stream, he founded a settlement which hecalled Santa María de los Buenos Aires. A soldier on his expedition, Ulrich Schmidl,wrote a lengthy narrative after a stay of almost twenty years in these lands.To Martín del Barco Centenera, who arrived with Governor (Adelantado) Ortiz deZárate (1573), we owe a poem — known posthumously — which he called Argentina andthe Conquest of the River Plate. In this case, “Argentina” alludes to the territories thatencompassed all areas of the Plate, which, as mentioned earlier, had become renownedowing to the erroneous news that silver existed in the region.Etymologically the word “Argentina” comes from argentum (silver). So powerful wasthe influence of that title that not only did it change the name of the River of Solís for thatof Río de la Plata (River Plate, literally of Silver), but endured to give name to the sisterNation, the republic of Argentina 18, 22 .Indigenous Uruguay■ Indigenous UruguayNo hominid fossils have been found in the Americas, since the American Indian didnot originate on the continent. Diverse researchers maintain that he arrived from Asia,crossing over from Siberia, at different stages, through the Behring Strait. According toBates, his appearance in America took place before that in Europe, some 35,000 to40,000 years ago according to archeological discoveries. They were beings of a Mongoloidtype, which later gradually acquired differentiated features according to environmentalfactors. Other theories hold that they could also have arrived across the PacificOcean and from the Antarctic.393