Doctors of the National Campaign of 1856-1857

Abstract

Received: 29-03-2021.

Approved: 01-05-2021.

In the National Campaign of 1856-1857 against the filibuster army commanded by William Walker, some twelve doctors were in charge of the health of the Costa Rican troops, at different times. Led by the German Karl Hoffmann during the first stage of the Campaign, the group included both national (Cruz Alvarado Velazco, Andrés Sáenz Llorente, Bernabé Bermúdez, Manuel María Esquivel, and Bruno Carranza) and foreign physicians (Santiago Hogan, Fermín Meza Orellana, Francisco Bastos, Franz Ellendorf, Alexander von Frantzius, and Marquis L. Hine). This article provides a synthetic, unified and updated vision of the way in which the Costa Rican government responded to the sanitary crisis, as well as the particular contributions of each of the doctors and their nursing assistants in the care of the injured soldiers and in the face of the cholera epidemics.