We continue with our weekly deliveries, in which we remember the life and work of those thinkers, professionals and scientists, men and women, who shaped academic training from their different specialties , and whose names are currently used to identify colleges, institutes and universities. The value and importance of this compilation of biographies lies in rescuing from oblivion or absolute ignorance their contributions to Peruvian culture and thought, as verifiable testimony that there was a time when Peru did produce intellectual raw material capable of changing to society, with a view to converting it into a more just, cultured and supportive one. Figures like that of our biography today are part of our moral heritage, the one that lives threatened by indifference and the institutionalization of the corrupt, the vulgar, the superficial and the inconsequential.
It was the need to forge a life with better opportunities and the desire to leave an existence full of deprivation, which forced José Cayetano Heredia Sanchez to leave his native Piura in 1812 for Lima at the age of 15. Lima was, at that time, the Peruvian city that stood out for being the center of learning, preparation and scientific teaching of most specialties.
The priest Fermín Goya received Cayetano Heredia on his arrival in Lima at the San Fernando Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos , founded by Don Hipólito Unanue. The clergyman supported the famous Peruvian physician in his choice of vocation and in his determination to specialize in human medicine. The scholarship that Heredia obtained was due to steps taken by Goya, a parish priest with whom Heredia would have a very strong relationship throughout his life. In order to repay the expenses of the scholarship that had been granted to him, the future doctor became involved in carrying out many works and projects within the Faculty in which he was studying.
In Lima, Heredia stood out among the students of his Faculty, which allowed him to obtain the chair of Anatomy before graduating. At the age of 26, Cayetano Heredia He obtained a Bachelor of Medicine degree and just three years later, he graduated as a professor of Medicine, a name by which professional doctors were known at the time.
At a time when events demanded an unequivocal political commitment to the cause of Peruvian independence, Heredia preferred to get involved and support the liberation of his homeland from the Spanish yoke from the field of medicine rather than from that of politics. Under these circumstances, Heredia is appointed Surgeon and General Inspector of the Military Hospital, a position that the doctor carried out in a very efficient manner.
At the age of 37, the doctor from Piura was appointed director of the Colegio de la Independencia by the then president of Peru, Luis José de Orbegoso y Moncada. Heredia held the position between 1834 and 1839. The opportunity that Heredia found through the state appointment to exercise his competence as a medical surgeon was unbeatable, however, he also encountered a series of restrictions, such as:scarce economic means and students without the minimum financial support to aspire to emerge.
Faced with this adverse situation, and with the desire to bring the teaching of medicine in Peru to European levels (Heredia greatly admired the French school of medicine for its excellence) , the illustrious Peruvian surgeon decided to carry out a series of reforms that would reinforce the training of those who at that time were preparing to fulfill the Hippocratic oath. Cayetano Heredia he sent to Europe, making use of his heritage, students whom he considered to be the most outstanding of their respective groups. The students who were sent to the old continent obtained a degree of excellence in their instruction that they would hardly have acquired in Peru.
Among other reforms that Heredia implemented during his rectorship of the College of Medicine, we can highlight for example:the creation of a framework that had the objective of regulating the study of the medical profession , allowing progress in the teaching of this specialty. Heredia also abolished the protomedicato, a technical body in charge of supervising the exercise of the health professions (doctors, surgeons and pharmacists) and which, being considered obsolete, did not contribute to the training of doctors at a higher level. Through this measure, the father of Peruvian medicine unified professions that had previously been considered different, as demonstrated by the ancient stratification of specialties related to medicine:physicists, Latin surgeons, Romancist surgeons, and sandflies.
In addition, Heredia is credited with recruiting world medicine scholars to give lectures during his visits to the Peruvian capital. Thus, for example, the Frenchman Pedro Douglas was appointed Professor of Medicine, as was the Italian Emmanuele Solari, both renowned European doctors. The Spaniard Sebastián Lorente dedicated himself to teaching Physiology and the Italian Giuseppe Eboli was hired to teach Science. Antonio Raimondi, the famous naturalist, obtained all the facilities to develop his scientific activities thanks to the management of Cayetano Heredia , which he perfectly combined with his profession as a teacher at the School of Medicine.
Cayetano Heredia He died at the age of 64 in 1861. This distinguished precursor of medicine in Peru is credited with having trained generations of top-level medical surgeons who in turn helped the progress of this specialty in our country over time.