[On human morphological studies in New Spain and in Mexico of nineteenth century]

The renewed anatomical studies reached a culmination in the XVI century allowing the discovery of the pulmonary blood circulation and later of the systemic blood circulation. The XVII century saw the coming of microscopic anatomy and the XVIII witness the systematization of pathological anatomy. These studies will be impelled during following century toward the clinical-anatomical comparison. Regarding to America, the anatomical studies began in New Spain, when the first textbooks of anatomy, surgery and physiology were published. The first anatomy chair was established in 1621 at the Royal and Papal University of Mexico. The teaching of anatomy was modernized, making that more practical, at the Royal School of Surgery, which began to function in 1770. In the Establishment of Medical Sciences, founded in 1833, surgery was incorporated to internal medicine. This fact permitted to unify the anatomical teaching. If on examines the lists of textbooks utilized in the different periods, it comes out that these books belonged with the contemporaneous advances of science. This consideration concerns also the receptional thesis presented to Faculty of Medicine during the XIX century.