History of Latin American Dermatology

PAULO R. CUNHAMedical Schools. Actually, before João Pizarro Gabizo (Rio de Janeiro) and Alexandre deCastro Cerqueira (Salvador) took possession of the Chair obtained through public competition,Dr. Antônio José Pereira da Silva Araújo, from the Bahia Tropical School, hadalready, in 1882, institutionalized the unchaired teaching of Dermatology, in a privatecourse taught at the first Clinic of Skin Diseases in the country, created that same yearat Rio de Janeiro’s General Polyclinic.Joaquim Mota states that, beyond doubt, up until that time, “except for some writings,one could say that Dermatology was completely unknown in Brazil, to the extent that thecreation of an official Chair actually marked the beginning of these studies in the country” 2 .Also in 1883, public selection contests were held to choose associate professors, a postcreated by the Sabóia Reform. In Rio de Janeiro, in the 11 th section, which correspondedto the Chair of cutaneous diseases, Dr. Luiz da Costa Chaves Faria was appointed, whoin 1904, due to the passing away of Gabizo, would be named lecturer of the Dermatologyand Syphilography Clinic, the name given to the course since 1892.As a result of the dynamics induced by the teaching of the new specialized field in thecountry, the 1880s stand out for the drive provided to microbiological research by the OswaldoCruz Institute. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Brazilian Society ofDermatology emerged to support and enlarge the educational, cohesion and evaluationprocess of the professional category, giving priority to the encouragement of scientific researchand favoring the implementation of a creative and influential national school inthe country, which would at the same time have foreign links and be respected abroad.Drs. Fernando Terra and Eduardo RabelloIn 1906, the competition for substitute professor of the Dermatology Clinic was held;the first place was shared, with equal number of points, by Fernando Terra and EduardoRabello.Terra, being the elder of the two and having been teaching assistant at the Chair since1891, was the one chosen by Alfonso Pena’s Government. In 1910, with the death ofChaves Faria, he rose to head of the Chair, a post he held for fifteen more years.The emergence of the BSD is also explained by the onset of scientific research which— mainly in the early years of the twentieth century — characterized the setting of thenascent Dermatology; this process was provoked by the development of the Chairs andby the role of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, which would be encouraged by the BrazilianSociety of Dermatology as far as the force, the organization and the technical disseminationof the new specialized field.The inspiring scenarioThe study and practice of Dermatology in Europe had, at the end of the nineteenthcentury, attained a high level of development, allowing for debate on the major problemsof pathology and clinical medicine among the masters of various schools. FerdinandHebra, head of the Vienna School, launched the definitive bases of the specialized field,providing it with the systemization and the body of doctrine that inspired the continuatorsof his work: Kaposi, Auspitz and Neuman.Dermatology arrived in Brazil with certain difficulty, since studies and papers onlybegan to increase during the years that marked the end of the nineteenth century andthe beginning of the twentieth. Some authors do not even acknowledge any contributionsin this respect before 1900.The truth is that we can begin to talk about both Brazilian medicine and BrazilianDermatology starting in the early twentieth century. The work carried out by the twoSchools (Salvador and Rio de Janeiro) was the seed that made the scientific spirit sprout74