The surgeons, the College of San Fernando and the modernization of medicine in Peru (1711-1821)

Abstract

The progress of knowledge in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries covered all branches of knowledge. New methods, theories, discoveries and tools spread rapidly, producing a world-class scientific revolution. Anatomy, surgery and the clinic were some of the specialties that propelled the advances of medicine, improving its teaching and its application. Peru was not at the margin of this current of renewal and modernization. The Peruvian doctors and surgeons, organized in institutions such as the “Protomedicato”, University of San Marcos and “San Fernando” College of Medicine and Surgery, incorporated and adapted the main European innovations to their daily practices.