Jose Eleuterio Gonzalez

José Eleuterio González Mendoza «Gonzalitos» (Guadalajara, Nueva Galicia, Viceroyalty of New Spain, February 20, 1813 - Monterrey, Nuevo León, April 4, 1888) was a prominent physician, botanist, politician and philanthropist in the Mexican city of Monterrey. He founded the first public hospital and the first public university in the state of Nuevo León. He also became governor of the State of Nuevo León three times (once constitutionally and twice interim). When he died, he left his assets to the School of Medicine and the Civil Hospital that today bear his name.

The early years

José Eleuterio González was born on February 20, 1813 in the city of Guadalajara, then part of the province of Nueva Galicia (present-day Mexico), in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, into a family headed by Matías González, a military of the viceregal army, and by Josefa Mendoza de González. His father died in the independence struggle when José Eleuterio was barely five years old, leaving him under the guardianship of his maternal uncle, who educated him until he was twelve years old. At that age he entered the Guadalajara Seminary to study philosophy, rhetoric, etymology and classical literature.

At the age of 17, he enrolled in the Guadalajara School of Medicine, one of the oldest in the country. He began working as an assistant to his teacher at the San Juan de Dios Hospital run by the Monks Juaninos, a religious order dedicated to serving the sick. There he met Fray Gabriel María Jiménez, a patient from Monterrey who arrived sick with tuberculosis. He spent more than a year under Gonzalitos' care and a great friendship was forged between them. For health reasons, Jiménez had to travel to the city of San Luis Potosí and invited Gonzalitos to go with him, promising to get him a job at another hospital run by the same order. Since his uncle had died around that time and was beginning to experience financial difficulties, he accepted the invitation.

On October 7, 1830, he arrived in the city of San Luis Potosí and obtained a job as a second intern at the hospital, earning a salary of twenty pesos a month and becoming an apprentice to Dr. Pablo Cuadriello and the internist Pascual Aranda. Friar Jiménez's health worsened and he decided to accompany him to Monterrey so that he could spend his last days with his family. On November 12, 1833, he arrived in the city and was named the first practitioner at the Hospital del Rosario, the only one that existed in the town.

Monterrey

The Hospital del Rosario was supported by Bishop Belaunzarán, who appreciated him greatly for the services rendered to Friar Jiménez. Around that time, the director of the hospital decided to leave for the city of León and Gonzalitos was promoted to interim director of the institution. Being under the responsibility of a hospital at such a young age and without a medical degree forced him to prepare in an almost self-taught way. On April 1, 1835, he opened the chair of pharmacy in the hospital apothecary given the urgent need to train apothecaries in the city. He began with only four students who would graduate years later on his own authority, since there was still no medical or pharmaceutical school in the town.

On January 6, 1836, Gonzalitos married Carmen Arredondo, daughter of General Joaquín Arredondo, Military Chief of the Internal Provinces of the East during the war of independence. Six years later the couple separated without having children. According to some testimonies, the break with his young wife would affect him until the day he died and would motivate him to devote himself full time to practicing medicine. It is said that Doña Carmen Arredondo noticed a general who had arrived in Nuevo León; That general was Mariano Arista who would come to the State to control the guerrillas.

Don Mariano Arista ordered an orange tree to be brought in blossom from Montemorelos to have a sarao and present his beloved to Nuevo Leon society. It is said that one night they knocked on the door of Dr. González, warning that there was a wounded person; When he arrived at the hut where the wounded man was, he was surprised to discover that such was General Arista, who had stolen the love of his life; without thinking, Gonzalitos cured him. He even visited him several times to make sure he was okay.

On March 8, 1842, nine years after taking charge of the Rosario Hospital, he obtained his medical degree by passing the Health Board exam. A month later he opened the medical sciences course, for which he decided to use the texts and the study program of the School of Medicine of Mexico, which he complemented with his personal notes. Four of his first five students would finish their studies at other institutions. The fifth, Blas María Diez, would eventually become the first doctor to graduate in Nuevo León.

The School of Medicine

In 1853, he opened a course in obstetrics for men and women. Two years earlier he had been elected president of the state Board of Health. He began to focus his efforts on opening the first public university in the region, he achieved it in 1859 with the opening of the Civil College, whose School of Medicine he took over.

The School of Medicine operated in its first year in a room of the bishop's house that had been seized in the Reform War and had six professors and fifteen students. Upon the arrival of the French army, it was forced to close its doors and hold sessions clandestinely between 1865 and 1866, when classes were taught at the teachers' homes. Count Liverman, an Austrian doctor who arrived with the French troops decided to nominate him for the Order of Guadalupe awarded by Emperor Maximilian, an honor he refused.

After the arrival of Mariano Escobedo's troops, Monterrey was once again in the hands of the Republican army and with it the Faculty of Medicine was able to reopen its doors. Previously, Gonzalitos had become close friends with the Liberal high command a couple of years ago when he helped the wife of President Juárez in labor while the couple was temporarily residing in the city. His forays into politics were sporadic but important: on several occasions he served as state governor, especially as an interim during the administration of Jerónimo Treviño.

Shortly after, Gonzalitos began to experience vision problems due to a complication in cataract surgery and a liver disease that was detected in 1883. He spent his last years blind, however, he did not interrupt his teaching and supervision tasks at the hospital that he carried out assisted by students and assistants. Finally, at eleven o'clock at night on April 4, 1888, he died and was buried in the chapel of the Civil Hospital. His remains were buried twice to finally locate them since 1982 in the garden of the Faculty of Medicine of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León.

He was declared Benemérito of the State in 1867, ratified with a second decree in 1873, as protector of youth and benefactor of humanity. During his lifetime, the municipality of Doctor González was erected in his honor, by Decree No. 18 of November 5, 1883.

The legacy of Gonzalitos and his teaching method has lived on for years. Currently, the Faculty of Medicine is famous for its self-taught teaching method by applying the same principles that Gonzalitos used since his first years of learning and teaching. Currently, the inhabitants of the city of Monterrey, especially the elderly, continue to consider the Faculty of Medicine and the University Hospital "Dr. José Eleuterio González" as the best in the State of Nuevo León for its tradition of quality in teaching and humanism.

He is remembered with monuments at the University Hospital (Joaquín Arias), the Faculty of Medicine (Miguel Giacomino) and on Avenida José Eleuterio González "Gonzalitos" of the Monterrey capital, which bears his name.

His spirit continues to fan the flame of truth at University Hospital.