Sobre el origen de la Bacteriología Experimental en Chile / The history of microbiology in Chile: About the origin of experimental bacteriology

ABSTRACT

The origin of Bacteriology in Chile is intimately bound to the life of the physicians Vicente Izquierdo Sanfuentes and Francisco Puelma Tupper. Both were awarded in 1874 with a government fellowship to study in the most prestigious universities of Europe. Dr. Izquierdo studied Histology and Dr. Puelma Tupper Pathology. After their return to Chile in 1879, both founded in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile, the frst experimental laboratories in their respective disciplines. It was in those laboratories that the new science of microbiology started to be developed slowly. This discipline was just consolidating itself in Europe, led by the famous scientists Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch.