[Physicians and surgeons during the inquisition in new Spain]

The origins of New Spain Inquisition whose jurisdiction extended also to Philippine Islands, are related herein. Physicians and surgeons who worked as Inquisition officers are discussed, from the first Dr. Juan de la Fuente who was appointed on May 9, 1572, to Dr. Pedro del Castillo, appointed on September 24, 1644. Likewise, physicians and surgeons judged by the Holy Office are mentioned. During the XVI century, those judged were few and insignificant personages, the first was the Irish Protestant William Corniels a barber surgeon, who arrived with the John Hawkins' pirate fleet in 1568 and settled in Guatemala. Some physicians and surgeons were judged as "Judaizers" during the first half of the XVII century. Many physicians and surgeons were prosecuted in Mexico, as well as in the Philippine Islands, in the second half of the XVIII century because they were Freemasons or supporters of French Revolution ideology. Among those was the unfortunate Dr. Enrique Esteban Morel, who introduced into Mexico the method of antivariolar inoculation at the time of the great epidemic out-break of 1779. It should be a gesture of justice to build a memorial in the ancient Inquisition Palace to honor this Public Health's worthy physician.