[Chilean medicine immediately after the 1891 revolution]

The conflict between the Chilean President Balmaceda and the parliament lead him to rule the country despotically during 8 months, until his suicide in 1891. During this lapse he persecuted and imprisoned his opponents, including several Medical School professors. Doctor David Benavente, professor of Anatomy and Balmaceda's opponent, wrote a chronicle at the Revista Médica de Chile (1897; 20:46) referring to the changes that occurred at the Medical School: "Flogged by dictatorship's winds, it barely gave sings of life during the eight months that Balmaceda dominated the country". Political passion almost annihilated for ever the first scientific teaching center of the University of Chile, posed a project at the Public Instruction Council "to create in all high schools a special class about the general principles of the Constitution". Once democratic normality was re-established, the development of Chilean Medicine was greatly impelled, sending young physicians to specialize at qualified european centers.