Dr José Maria Vargas, standard bearer of Venezuelan medicine: The doctor and the statesman

Abstract

José Maria Vargas, (1786-1854), who was born on March 10, 1796, graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree from the Central University of Venezuela in 1808. He was subsequently imprisoned in 1813 by the Spanish authorities for his independence activities. When finally freed, he traveled to Edinburgh for postgraduate medical training and became the first Venezuelan to earn a Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He worked afterward in medicine, surgery, botany, and chemistry, practicing in Scotland, France, and Puerto Rico. Upon his return to Venezuela in 1825 from 1827 to 1829, he became Professor of Surgery and later, President (Rector) of the Central University of Venezuela. He was elected the second president of newly independent Venezuela serving from 1835 to 1836 and carried out his tasks with honor and dignity, even after surviving a coup d’état. Finally, he resigned his position as president and returned to the practice of medicine and his teaching duties. He reasoned and wrote a beautiful differential diagnosis in a case supposedly of pellagra, but actually of erythema marginatum. Dr Vargas died in New York on July 13, 1854, after a long illness.