[A contribution to the history of pertussis in Chile. XIX Century].

Chilean historians of Medicine do not mention significant pertussis epidemics in the country during XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries, and scarce information is available about epidemics occurred during most of the XIX century, emphasizing one that happened in La Serena in 1851 and Valdivia in 1853. In the last third of the XIX century, epidemics that happened in Santiago as in other Chilean regions were described, reporting that, between 1892 and 1895, 8,181 patients died of pertussis, high numbers most likely due to the severity of epidemics observed since 1890. Measles and pertussis epidemics often co-existed, or were antedated or followed by the other.