Background
Juan Guiteras was born in Matanzas, Cuba on January 4, 1852, to Eusebio Guiteras and Josefa Gener, both from families prominent in Cuba’s struggle for independence.
Juan Guiteras was born in Matanzas, Cuba on January 4, 1852, to Eusebio Guiteras and Josefa Gener, both from families prominent in Cuba’s struggle for independence.
Juan Guiteras received his early education at the Colegio La Empresa in Matanzas, directed by his uncle, Antonio Guiteras.
Following his graduation in 1867, he took up the study of medicine first at the University of Havana and then at the University of Pennsylvania where he obtained his degree of M. D. in 1873.
After an interneship in the Philadelphia Hospital, Juan Guiteras was appointed to the attending staff of that hospital and pursued the practice of medicine for the following six years. In 1879 he was designated by the United States government as a member of the Havana Yellow Fever Commission.
This commission was headed by Dr. Stanford Chaille of New Orleans and included Major George M. Sternberg of the army.
One of the charges put upon the commission was a study of the pathology of yellow fever and this work was assigned to Guiteras.
In 1880 he entered the Marine Hospital Service, in which he served up to 1889, reaching the grade of past-assistant surgeon.
During 1884-88 he held the chair of clinical medicine in the Medical School of South Carolina and in 1889 he was appointed to the chair of pathology in the University of Pennsylvania, holding this position until his return to Cuba in 1899.
During the Cuban war for independence (1895) he headed the Revolutionary Committee, in Philadelphia, and his home and his purse were open to his needy compatriots.
Following the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he went to Cuba as acting assistant surgeon attached to the staff of General Shafter, and in this capacity participated in the Santiago campaign.
After the occupation of Havana by the American troops he was assigned to the Las Animas hospital where all cases of yellow fever were treated.
He was designated a member of a board for the diagnosis of the disease, on which he was associated with Major W. C. Gorgas of the army, Dr. Carlos J. Finlay, and Dr. Antonio Albertini, which was engaged in experimental work upon the transmission of yellow fever.
The finding of that board that the disease was transmitted by a mosquito now classed in the genus Aedes, was confirmed by Culteras the following year through independent experiments conducted at Las Animas.
Following the methods of the Reed board he succeeded in producing the disease in eight subjects, unhappily with three deaths.
Coincident with this work he was carrying out investigations upon the feasibility of immunization by a vaccine.
It took but a short time to show that vaccination was not applicable to prevention of this disease.
In 1900 he was appointed professor of pathology and tropical medicine in the University of Havana, a position which he filled for over twenty years.
The Palma government, with due regard to his talents, named him a member of the Higher Board of Health and director of Las Animas hospital.
He was director of public health in Cuba from 1909 to 1921 and president of the National Board of Health and secretary of Public Health and Charities from 1921 to the time of his death.
In 1916 he was appointed a member of the yellow-fever commission of the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)
Among the many Cuban and American medical societies to which he belonged were the American Academy of Public Health and the Association of American Physicians.
Juan Guiteras was married on May 5, 1883, to Dolores Gener of Matanzas.
