Francisco Javier Muñiz

Francisco Javier Muñiz (born December 21, 1795 in San Isidro / Argentina , † April 7, 1871 in Buenos Aires ) was an Argentine military doctor and paleontologist .

Francisco Javier Muñiz studied medicine at the "Instituto Médico Militar (Military Medical Institute)" in Buenos Aires from 1814. This institute was founded by Cosme Mariano Argerich (1758–1820), a pioneer of military medicine. Muñiz received his doctorate in medicine in 1822 and became a surgeon in the Argentine Army in 1825. In 1828 he worked as a country doctor for the medically hopelessly underserved indigenous peoples. In the case of the indigenous peoples, he initially dealt with the necessary means of protection, e.g. B. with the smallpox vaccination. He also began to be interested in paleontology in that region. He discovered previously unknown fossils, such as B. the " Smilodon Bonaerensis " and in 1844 the "Hippidium neogaeum". He sent his descriptions to Charles Darwin on August 30, 1846, for a review. Darwin encouraged Muňiz to continue research.

Upon his return to Buenos Aires, Muñiz was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. When the yellow fever broke out in Buenos Aires, Francisco Javier Muñiz and his colleagues fought the disease, to which he later succumbed. He was buried in the "de la Recoleta" cemetery in Buenos Aires. He is considered the first important naturalist and epidemiologist in Argentina.

publication

• Páginas científicas y literarias .

Honor

In the "Cementerio de la Recoleta" (cemetery), the city of Buenos Aires had a monument erected for Francisco Javier Muñiz.

literature

• Leopoldo E. Acuña: Francisco Javier Muñiz, in: Wolfgang U. Eckart and Christoph Gradmann (eds.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the present , 3rd edition Springer Heidelberg, 2006, p. 236. Ärztelexikon 2006 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-540-29585-3 .