[Physicians and surgeons during the French intervention and the Second Empire]

Because of the law of July 17th, suspending the payment of the national and foreign debt, England, Spain and France, the main creditors of Mexico, determined to perform a military expedition in order to sustain their claims. Allied armies reached the Mexican shores on December 1861 and January 1862, when the cause of conflict was already inexistent. In fact, the said law was abrogated on November 23rd. In accordance with the settlement of La Soledad, while English forces remained near the coast, Spanish and French soldiers transiently settled in Orizaba and Tehuacán, respectively. Their military physicians assisted the wounded and mutilated Mexican people consequently to disaster of San Andrés Chalchicomula (March, 1862). When the French army initiated hostilities against the Mexican forces, the physicians and surgeons of both sides excelled for their abnegation and sacrifice spirit in the battle of May 5th, as well as during the Puebla' siege. There were also combatant physicians and surgeons, who participated in several episodes of war. On the other hand, French military and Mexican civil physicians constituted, on April 1864, the original nucleus of our Academy of Medicine. Physicians continued being loyal to their mission at the time of the second empire, excelling particularly during the siege of Querétaro by the republican forces. In spite of the inevitable ravages of the war, at that unfortunate time unquestionable advances in the field of the scientific progress and of the human solidarity, were attained.