Guillermo Rawson. Physician and Politician

Bicentennial of his birth

Abstract

Guillermo Colesbery Rawson was born in the city of San Juan, Argentina, on June 25, 1821, son of the American doctor Aman Rawson and the Creole lady María Josefina Rojo Frías. His older brother was the famous painter and portraitist Benjamín Franklin Rawson. Guillermo Rawson was a hygienist doctor and a politician of stature with a great vocation for progress. He studied in Buenos Aires under the tutelage of the famous doctor and philosopher Diego Alcorta. He entered the Faculty of Medicine and obtained his diploma in 1844, at the age of twenty-three, and returned to San Juan, where he was a friend of Sarmiento. In 1854 he was elected deputy for his province, beginning his political career. In 1862, Bartolomé Mitre appointed him Minister of the Interior. He introduced the Decimal Metric System and occupied the presidency on an interim basis due to the Paraguayan war. In 1870 he was part of the Constituent Convention. He was Professor of Hygiene at the Faculty of Medicine and of Philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires. He was an Argentine representative at numerous international conferences. In 1880 he created the Argentine Red Cross and a year later he travelled to Paris to treat his eye problems that forced him to leave public life and eventually led to his blindness. In 1889 he suffered from carcinoma of the tongue for which he was operated on and died in Paris on February 2, 1890. His life was a constant dedication to the progress and well-being of the country.