Pan-American Doctors

Large attendance (1,500) at the Pan-American Medical Congress in Dallas last week demonstrated clearly that Latin America no longer looks to Europe for medical education and that Anglo-Saxon America appreciates the fact. Practically every important U. S. and Canadian medical school had an attractive representative in Dallas. Great clinicians attended in person. Surgeon Charles Horace Mayo motored from Minnesota with Mrs. Mayo to the Congress. Surgeon George Washington Crile took a train from Cleveland.

Pursuant to a joint resolution of the U. S. Senate and House of Representatives, President Roosevelt telegraphed "cordial greetings." The President hoped for "friendly relations and mutual under-standing between the U. S. and her sister republics of Latin America." Most of the Latin American doctors there had had their expenses paid by their governments.*

The Doctors at Dallas chose Dec. 3 as the "memorial day for Pan-American medicine." Dec. 3 is the birthday of the late Dr. Carlos Juan Finlay, Cuban, who indicted the mosquito which Dr. Walter Reed later proved transmitted yellow fever.

Havana's Dr. Aristides Agramonte was long a survivor of Dr. Reed's bold associates. He died in 1931 shortly after being elected to preside over the Pan-American Congress at Dallas last week. The Congress kept a chair vacant for his memory.

Dr. John Oliver McReynolds, a Dallas eye man, had Dr. Agramonte's place as Congress president. During the week he became president of the Pan-American Medical Association, succeeding Havana's bland, simpatico Dr. Francisco Maria Fernandez. Ophthalmologist McReynolds' presidency made Dallas doubly proud. His rival for the glory of being Dallas' most prominent eye doctor is Dr. Edward Henry Gary, currently in the public eye as president of the American Medical Association.

As a novelty the next Pan-American Medical Congress will be a wandering event. A ship will pick up the doctors at Manhattan, put them ashore for quick clinics at Miami, Havana, Panama City, San Juan, P. R., Caracas (main stop).

About 200 men read medical papers at Dallas last week--in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French. Members of the Congress showed as much interest in amenities as in science. Latin America has produced few medical men of high scientific rank. But the Latin nations have many able practitioners.

The question arose at Dallas what diseases the traveler in Mexico, the West Indies, Central and South America need guard against. General advice was, as for travel anywhere, to take precautionary inoculations against smallpox and typhoid. Often threatening are bacillary and amebic dysentery, typhus, bubonic plague (a milder form than in the Orient), yellow fever, malignant malaria, and in the seaports venereal disease. Country people exhibit comparatively little venereal disease. On the other hand, mainly because they go barefoot and tend to wash little, they are subject to the tropical fevers and sores. Oroya fever and Andean Wart are peculiar to a small area of the Peruvian highlands. Latin Americans are specially susceptible to cataracts, a situation which partially explains the eminence of eye doctors in the Pan-American Medical Association.

Able doctor: usually have their own hospitals in Latin American countries. Nursing is fair--better in the private than in the public institutions served by kindly but inefficient nuns. National medical journals, supplemented by the Spanish edition of the American Medical Association's Journal and by European journals, keep local practitioners in touch with current medical progress. The profession, however, does not seem sufficiently alert and disinterested to prevent the sale of quack cure-alls. Latin America is the patent medicine man's happiest hunting ground.

Generally the best doctor for a U. S. traveler in Latin America is a resident member of the American Medical Association or a graduate of a high grade U. S. medical school. For various ailments. experienced travelers point to the following as among the best men to see:

Surgery: Buenos Aires, Dr. Jose Arce; Callao, Dr. E. A. McCornack; Panama, Dr. Augusto Samuel Boyd; Mexico City, Drs. Ulises Valdes, Abelardo Monges Lopez, Jose Torres Torija; Havana, Drs. Ricardo Nunez Portuondo, Ernesto R. de Aragon.

Gynecology 6 Obstetrics: Montevideo, Dr. Juan Pouorfila; Bogota, Dr. Juan N. Corpas; Mexico City, Dr. Ever-ardoLanda; Havana, Drs. Gustavo Cuervo Rubio, Gualberto Ponce y Diaz.

Eye: Santiago (Chile), Dr. Carlos Charlin; Guayaquil, Dr. Juan F. Rubio; Mexico City, Drs. Rafael Silva, Juan Luis Torroella; Havana, Drs. Francisco Maria Fernandez, Horacio Ferrer.

Ear, Nose 6 Throat: Buenos Aires, Dr. Antonio R. Zambrini; Caracas, Dr. Lisandro Lopez Villoria; San Salvador, Dr. Joaquin Guillen Rivas; Havana, Drs. Eduardo Ramirez de Arellano, Ricardo Silveira.

Nerves 8 Brain: Lima, Dr. Honorio F. Delgado; Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Gustavo Riedel; Havana, Drs. Armando de Cordova, Elpidio Stincer, Juan Portell Vila.

Orthopedic Surgery: Buenos Aires, Dr. Jose Vails; Montevideo, Dr. Prudencio Pena; Bogota, Dr. Jose M. Montoya; Havana, Drs. Alberto Inclan, Pedro Sanchez Toledo.

Tropical Diseases: Quito, Dr. Sergio Lasso Meneses; Lima, Drs. Edmundo Escomel, Carlos Enrique Paz Soldan; Bogota, Dr. Daniel Brigard; Caracas, Dr. R. Gonzalez Rincones; Rio de. Janeiro, Dr. Carlos Chagas; Mexico City, Dr. Gaston Melo; San Jose (Costa Rica), Dr. Solon Nunez; Havana, Dr. W. Hoffmann.

Children: Buenos Aires, Dr. Gregorio Araoz Alfaro; Montevideo, Dr. Luis Morquio; Lima, Dr. Orestes Botto; Mexico City, Drs. Antonio Sordo Noriega, Mario Torroella; Havana, Dr. Angel Arturo Aballi.

Skin Diseases: Buenos Aires, Dr. Pedro L. Balina; Sao Paulo, Dr. Carlos Adolfo Linderberg; Mexico City, Dr. J. Gonzalez Uruena; Havana, Drs. Vicente Pardo Castello, Juan J. Mestre.

X-rays: Panama, Dr. Joaquin J. Vallarino; San Salvador, Dr. David Escalante; Havana, Drs. Filiberto Rivero, Pedro L. Farinas, Luis Farinas.

Urology: Santiago (Chile-), Dr. Waldemar Coutts; Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Americo Valerio; Mexico City, Dr. Luis Rivero Borrell; Havana, Drs. Arturo Garcia Casariego, Luis F. Rodriguez Molina.

General Medicine: Buenos Aires, Dr. Pedro Escudero; Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Aloysio de Castro; Caracas, Dr. J. M. Risquez; Mexico City, Drs. Fernando Ocaranza, Teofilo Ortiz Ramirez. Francisco de P. Miranda; Havana, Dr. Luis Ortiega.

*Argentina. Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Salvador, Uruguay, Venezuela.

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