EL PENSAMIENTO MÉDICO DE EUGENIO ESPEJO: SU APORTE A LA MEDICINA EUROPEA DEL SIGLO XVIII

Abstract

In 1785 Dr. Eugenio Espejo wrote his medical scientific work “Reflections on a method to preserve the smallpox peoples” at the request of the Quito Cabildo, to comply with the proposal of Dr. Francisco Gil expressed in his work “Dissertation Medical Physicist for the control of smallpox “. Espejo immediately sends a copy of his manuscript to José de Gálvez, Secretary of the Universal Office of the Indies, who delivers it to the author of the “Dissertation.” Dr. Gil, publishes in Madrid, the second edition of his book in 1786, adding an important segment of Espejo’s “Reflections” as an appendix to his work; a second reprint being edited in 1788. Gil / Espejo’s work, after its great impact in Spain, was translated in Italy in 1789 with the foreword by Dr. Antonio Larber published in Venice. Finally, in 1795 it was translated into German in Leipzig, with the foreword by Dr. Bernhard Christofh Faust. Despite the fact that Espejo’s manuscript was not published in Quito, his medical scientific thought, together with that of Dr. Gil, had a great impact on the European medical scientific world with the publication of four editions in a decade: two in Spain, one in Italy and one in Germany. The international importance of the second edition of the Physico-Medical Dissertation for the control of smallpox, which includes the studies of Eugenio Espejo, is highlighted. This edition was printed in Spain translated into Italian, German. Its existence and use is located in European libraries.