Oscar Cifuentes Solar

Óscar Cifuentes Solar (28 January 1892 – 26 June 1952) was a Chilean physician, socialist politician and cabinet minister. He served briefly as Minister of Public Health during the Socialist Republic of Chile in 1932 and later as a member of the Chamber of Deputies in the late 1930s.

Biography Cifuentes Solar was born in Santiago, Chile, on 28 January 1892. He was the son of Melitón Cifuentes and Aminta Solar.

He completed his primary and secondary education at the Colegio San Pedro Nolasco and later studied medicine at the University of Chile, qualifying as a physician in 1915. His medical thesis was entitled Procedimiento de diagnóstico serológico de la sífilis. He later undertook postgraduate studies in hygiene at the University of Paris in 1922 and also attended the Chilean War Academy.

He practiced medicine in Valparaíso, Antofagasta, Valdivia, Mulchén, Chillán and Santiago. He worked for public welfare services and municipal health departments and served as a physician in the Chilean Army, attaining the rank of major.

He married Gabriela Herrera, with whom he had two children.

Cifuentes Solar died in Santiago on 26 June 1952.

Political career Cifuentes Solar was politically active from the early 1930s. On 5 June 1932, following the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Chile, he was appointed Minister of Public Health under President Arturo Puga Osorio. He held the position until 16 June 1932.

He was a member of the Nueva Acción Pública movement and, in 1933, became one of the founding members of the Socialist Party. During the second presidency of Arturo Alessandri Palma, he was deported to Bolivia in 1935.

After returning to Chile, he was elected Deputy for the 2nd Departmental Group —Tocopilla, El Loa, Antofagasta and Taltal— for the 1937–1941 legislative period. During his parliamentary service, he sat on the Standing Committee on Medical-Social Assistance and Hygiene.

In 1939, he accepted diplomatic appointments abroad, serving as chargé d’affaires in Norway, Haiti and Santo Domingo. Upon assuming these duties, he vacated his parliamentary seat, which was filled by Vicente Ruiz Mondaca.

He also represented Chile at the First International Congress of Military Medicine in Brussels and at the First International Congress of the Red Cross in Geneva. Later, he served as Chilean Consul General in Havana.