The military experience of Santiago Ramón y Cajal in Cuba: medical captain in Camagüey

Abstract

This work addresses the presence of the eminent neuroscientist, Nobel Prize in Medicine, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, in Cuba, where he served, in his youth, as a military doctor during the Ten Years' War. In 1874, Cajal was assigned to the Expeditionary Army of Cuba as captain of Military Health, remaining on the island for fourteen months. The future histologist served in the worst possible destination, the Vista Hermosa and San Isidro field infirmaries, located on the Trocha of Bagá, in the district of Puerto Príncipe (now Camagüey), in the middle of the unsanitary manigua. In these infirmaries, he treated soldiers wounded in the field and a large number of sick soldiers, mainly from malaria and dysentery. He also worked, for a month and a half, recovering from malarial fevers, as doctor on call at the Military Hospital of Puerto Príncipe. Cajal himself fell ill with malaria and dysentery, was diagnosed with severe malarial cachexia and declared “disabled for weapons”, being able to return to Spain in June 1875. In this Cuban experience, Cajal discovered the environment of corruption in the colonial administration, with unjustified delays in the collection of salaries, indifference of the command and fraud in the food rations of his patients. In this work, Cajal’s perception of the island of Cuba, its people and its fauna and flora is also described. The imprint of Cuba and the war conflict would deeply mark the spirit of the scientist throughout his life and played a fundamental role in the construction of his philosophical, social and political thought.