de Micheli Alfredo
Instituto Nacional de Cardiología Ignacio Chávez, México DF, México.
Arch Cardiol Mex. 2014 Oct-Dec;84(4):314-9. doi: 10.1016/j.acmx.2013.10.014. Epub 2014 Sep 30.
The Mexican cardioangiology started in the nineteen century thanks to first endeavors of surgeons and physicians related to local academies and to School of Medicine, established in 1833 by Dr. Valentin Gómez Farías. Dr. Manuel Carpio, the future first head of department of physiology in this school, translated to Spanish language and published, in 1823, the article On pectoriloquo of the French physician Marat and later performed some experiments on the heart' motion. During the Secont Empire (1864-1867), the physician Samuel von Basch performed studies to define the arterial hypertension, called by him "latent atherosclerosis", i.e. the "essential hypertension". Once he had returned to his country, he invented in 1880, a sphygmomanometer of mercury column, that was the model for the instrument constructed by the Italian physician Scipione Riva-Rocci and presented in 1896. In our time, Dr. Demetrio Sodi Pallares systematized a metabolic therapy called "polarizing therapy", i.e. capable of repolarizing the heart's cells partly depolarized due to hypoxia or direct aggressions. These were the first steps in Mexico on the way to a promising medicine starting and the great adventure of Mexican cardiology.