Primeros atlas anatómicos utilizados en la formación de médicos en Chile

Abstract

In Chile, the first doctors were trained at the Universidad Real de San Felipe and the National Institute, between 1758 and 1833, where docents Domingo Nevín, Manuel Chaparro and Pedro Morán, used and recommended the few existing books. The objective of this work was to analyze these books with anatomical illustrations that were used during this period and in which, the first medical students found a visual guide for the understanding of human anatomy and the practice of dissection. For this study, the works of Lorenz Heister (1755), Martin Martínez (1764), Friedrich Tiedemann (1822) and François Chaussier (1823) were analyzed. A synthesis with relevant biographical data was developed for these authors, and for the books a bibliographic, quantitative and descriptive-qualitative analysis was performed. The images were also analyzed according to the classifications of Gomez (2005), Choulant (1852) and Kemp (1990). Regarding the authors of the texts, they were doctors, surgeons, anatomists and / or medical legists, of German, Spanish or French origin. The texts are written in Spanish, French, German and / or Latin. They present images with different levels of detail, in black and white or in color. All the anatomical bibliography used during the period under study is of European origin, transferring through its pages, a reality centered on 18th and 19th century Europe. This biased view of knowledge has been maintained until the present, where the teaching of human anatomy is still based on texts of foreign origin. A profound study of the training characteristics of doctors in Chile, is essential to understand the beginning of a professional identity, which has been important influence in health sciences and the political-social history of Chile.