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TRICENTENNIAL

EARLY DAWN OF MEDICINE

IN SAN ANTONIO

By Jaime Pankowsky, MD, FACS

1521, Hernan Cortez conquered the Aztec empire Antonio de Bexar. In 1731, 30 families from the Canary Islands set-
In and gave Spain territories much larger than its own. tled in town. Population: 200 inhabitants.
During the ensuing decade, several of the missions were built in-
The colony was named New Spain, but the complete
conquest of the country that is now Mexico was not cluding San Antonio de Valero, now popularly known as the Alamo.
completed until 1541. North of the then conquered lands, were This mission was secularized during the 18th Century and partly
much larger territories that remained mostly unexplored for almost abandoned, leaving it in a state of disrepair. By the last quarter of
a century. A few “conquistadores” like Coronado and Cabeza de the 18th Century, the population had grown to 3,000 inhabitants.
Vaca explored some of those northern vast lands but did not settle During all those years there is no documentation showing that
them. Their inhabitants were Indians of the Comanche, Karankawa there was any kind of rational healthcare, other than that provided
and Choctaw tribes. In 1689, a small contingent of Spanish soldiers by Indian shamans and healers. This care consisted of incantations,
came from the province of Coahuila to Texas and left a small gar- chants and something described with disgust by a missionary, Father
rison here. In 1718, an expedition led by Don Martin de Alarcon Morfi, of mouth-sucking of wounds and patients’ skin lesions by
came with soldiers and established a permanent colony called San the mouth of the healer. He also mentioned the application of hot

14 San Antonio Medicine • April 2018