History of Latin American Dermatology

HISTORY OFDERMATOLOGYIN URUGUAYRAÚL VIGNALECOLLABORATOR: FRANCISCO AMOR GARCÍArólogo■ PrefacePutting together a History of Latin American Dermatology implies the need both tostudy it and to write it down, for those dermatologists who are older in years and havelived long enough to remember the concepts and the moments that have been transmittedfrom generation to generation. It implies recapturing, in an anecdotal and biographicalform, the treasury of a national scientific past of enormous wealth and depth, in theface of the constant flow of progress of a science that is ever broader and more complexdue to the amount of knowledge that is contributed by the new forms and techniques ofinformation. The maelstrom in which the activities of today’s human being are caughtalter his value scale. This often leads us to neglect and to not assign its due value to thatlaborious, constant, persevering and talented past, with its true originality, without takinga halt at what was most important and perceptible, namely the great figures of ournational medicine — especially in dermatosyphilography — in the eighteenth, nineteenthand twentieth centuries.For this reason it becomes essential to evoke the roots that generated the currentthinking. The vast undertakings of that select and brilliant group of physicians have beenrendered for us not only in their public professional work as doctors, but also, and fundamentally,in the scientific publications they have bequeathed us as proof and testimonyto that constant striving and which constitute the concrete basis of the medical consciousnessof our culture.We have undertaken this work in the role of coordinators with the aim of publishing— with enthusiasm, but also facing all the difficulties that are due to the lack of sourcesof information — the history of Dermatology and Syphilography in Uruguay, in the mostcomplete manner possible, on the basis of the documentation preserved in the MedicalSchool’s libraries. In their archives, as well as in those of the Ministry of Public Health,are found the first documents and journals that were published in the River Plate.It is absolutely essential to thank the notable and fundamental support given to us atall times and in a personal manner by Dr. Fernando Mañé Garzón, professor and headof the Medical School’s Department of Medical History, as well as that of his collaborators,authors of numerous articles referring to a lengthy period that encompasses the403