José Felipe Flores

José Felipe Flores (Ciudad Real, Chiapas, Kingdom of Guatemala 1 May 1751 – Madrid, Spain 20 June 1824) was a medical doctor and Medicine teaching pioneer in Central America. He graduated from the Royal and Pontifical University of San Carlos Borromeo, and in 1781 became a faculty member of both the University and San Juan de Dios Hospital.

Using an inoculation method when there was a measles outbreak in Guatemala in 1780. The epidemic was contained and Dr. Flores obtained great success with the introduction of the vaccine in the kingdom. In 1785 he gave the hospital medical equipment He also helped in Optics, with lenses that he invented.

In 1797, with a scholarship from the government, Flores went on a four-year journey where he visited several American and European medical facilities. In Philadelphia he learned about Luigi Galvani's electrical experiments with frogs and later on he made studies on this of his own. When he arrived in Italia, he not only met Galvani, but Felice Fontana as well, whom he admired as scientist and maker of anatomic wax models. In Madrid, in 1803, he get in contact with Antoni de Gimbernat and made a report before the Surgeons Board about the need of a vaccination campaign in Spanish America, supported by the government.

Awards

In recognition of his multiple merits, he was appointed as the first legal doctor in Guatemala, leading the Medical Board Court. Due to his massive medical skills, the King of Spain appointed him as his personal physician. granted the "José Felipe Flores" award to the best doctoral thesis each year at the Fiestas Minervalias.

Works

Flores wrote several medical documents, among them one called Específico nuevamente descubierto en Guatemala para la cura del Cáncer y otras enfermedades más frecuentes (Newly discovered specific in Guatemala to cure Cancer and other more frequent illnesses). The cure consisted on eating small meatballs from a small lizard common to certain regions in Central America. The document was translated into French and German, and was discussed in medical forums. The lizard was included as curative in the medical lexicon.

Death

Flores died in Madrid, Spain, in 1824.

In Literature

He is the famous "doctor Sánchez", who appears in José Milla y Vidaurre's Memorias de un Abogado (A lawyer's memoirs).