Eduardo Wilde
Encyclopedia
Eduardo Wilde was an Argentine physician, politician, and writer, and among the most prominent intellectual figures of the modernizing Generation of '80
in Argentina
.
, Bolivia
, in 1844, to a mother from Tucumán
(Argentina), and an English Argentine father from Buenos Aires
. His father, Col. Diego Wilde a relative of the writer Oscar Wilde
, temporarily fled from Argentina to Bolivia during the rule of Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas
, and returned to Argentina after the latter’s fall in 1852. He was raised in Concepción del Uruguay
, and attended the local Colegio Nacional (one of a system of public college preparatory schools), where among his classmates were future Presidents Julio Roca and Victorino de la Plaza
.
Wilde enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires
School of Medicine in 1864, and as a student, he treated cholera
patients during an 1867 outbreak; his own father died from the disease while a commander of Argentine troops in the brutal War of the Triple Alliance
in 1866. Following an internship at the General Women’s Hospital, he graduated with a Medical Degree in 1870, and despite his early epidemiological experience, wrote his thesis on hiccup
s. His efforts as an Army doctor in the Paraguayan front, and during the historic, 1871 yellow fever
epidemic in Buenos Aires, however, earned him renown, and a professorship at the university in 1873. He first entered into public service with his appointment as the nation’s Director of Public Health by President Domingo Sarmiento.
A supporter of Buenos Aires Province
advocate Adolfo Alsina
's Autonomist Party
, he was elected to the provincial legislature in 1874, and was named vice president of the chamber before his election to the Lower House of Congress
in 1876. He became a leading liberal
during his two terms in Congress, and emerged as the chief counterpoint to conservative congressional powerbroker Aristóbulo del Valle
. A man of varied interests, Wilde also wrote for a number of newspapers, and directed La República for four years. His erstwhile classmate, President Julio Roca, appointed him Minister of Justice and Education in 1882. Wilde had record sums invested in the Colegio Nacional system, as well as in normal school
s. He enacted Law 1420, the nation’s first comprehensive laws mandating secular education
, as well as 1565 and 2393, which mandated civil marriage
s, thereby lessening the influential Catholic Church's control over the two key institutions.
These reforms helped earn him the nomination to the powerful Internal Affairs Minister’s post by Roca’s hand-picked successor, Miguel Juárez Celman, in 1886. Wilde focused efforts on public health for the rapidly growing population, and commissioned Eduardo Madero
, a financier with ties to Barings Bank
, to develop a new port (in what later became Puerto Madero
). These initiatives complemented his earlier work at the Justice Ministry by advancing the then isolated country’s social and economic modernization — a key tenet of the Generation of 1880, as those who shared in the policy became known. The death of an illustrious uncle, Dr. José Antonio Wilde (1813–1887), led to his authorizing the renaming of the settlement
, today a suburb of the Argentine capital, in the town doctor’s name in 1888.
The Panic of 1890
and resulting collapse of the state’s relationship with Barings led to the Revolution of the Park
, after which President Juárez Celman and his cabinet resigned. Wilde became a world traveler during the next eight years, touring the United States
, Japan
, China
, Egypt
, and throughout Europe
, publishing his voluminous travel diaries in Travels and Observations, and By Land and by Sea. Devoting himself to writing, he drew on his medical background to publish Lessons in Hygiene and Lessons in Legal Medicine and Toxicology, as well as Prometheus and Company, an account of his medical experience. He returned to public service upon Roca’s reelection as President in 1898, and was again named Director of Public Health. A coinciding outbreak of the bubonic plague
in Asunción
, Paraguay
, prompted Wilde to organize a humanitarian mission to the affected area, appointing the nation’s foremost epidemiologist
at the time, Dr. Carlos Malbrán, as its leader.
President Roca appointed Wilde Ambassador to the United States in 1900. He continued to lend his expertise to, among others, the 1901 International Conference of Sanitation in Havana
, and the 1902 International Conference on Blindness. Subsequently, he held ambassadorial posts in Mexico
, Spain
, the Netherlands, and Belgium
. There, he represented Argentina in the 1913 Brussels Conference on the Polar region
s, but died in Brussels
shortly afterwards. He was buried in La Recoleta Cemetery
.
Generation of '80
The Generation of '80 was the governing elite in Argentina from 1880 to 1916. Members of the oligarchy of the provinces and the country's capital, they first joined the League of Governors , and then the National Autonomist Party...
in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
.
Life and times
Eduardo Faustino Wilde was born in TupizaTupiza
Tupiza is a city in Potosí Department, Bolivia. It is located at around at an elevation of about 3160 m. The population is 23,100...
, Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, in 1844, to a mother from Tucumán
Tucumán
San Miguel de Tucumán is the capital of the Tucumán Province, located in northern Argentina at from Buenos Aires. It is the fifth biggest city of Argentina after Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario and Mendoza, and it is also the most important city of Northern Argentina...
(Argentina), and an English Argentine father from Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. His father, Col. Diego Wilde a relative of the writer Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, temporarily fled from Argentina to Bolivia during the rule of Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel de Rosas , was an argentine militar and politician, who was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires in 1829 to 1835, and then of the Argentine Confederation from 1835 until 1852...
, and returned to Argentina after the latter’s fall in 1852. He was raised in Concepción del Uruguay
Concepción del Uruguay
Concepción del Uruguay is a city in Argentina.It is located in the Entre Ríos province, on the western shore of the Uruguay River, some 320 kilometers north from Buenos Aires. Its population is about 65,000 inhabitants .-History:...
, and attended the local Colegio Nacional (one of a system of public college preparatory schools), where among his classmates were future Presidents Julio Roca and Victorino de la Plaza
Victorino de la Plaza
Victorino de la Plaza y Palacios was President of Argentina from 9 August 1914 to 11 October 1916.Second son of José Roque Mariano de la Plaza Elejalde and Manuela de la Silva Palacios; his older brother, Rafael de la Plaza, was also a politician and acted as governor of Santiago del Estero...
.
Wilde enrolled in the University of Buenos Aires
University of Buenos Aires
The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina and the largest university by enrollment in Latin America. Founded on August 12, 1821 in the city of Buenos Aires, it consists of 13 faculties, 6 hospitals, 10 museums and is linked to 4 high schools: Colegio Nacional de Buenos...
School of Medicine in 1864, and as a student, he treated cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
patients during an 1867 outbreak; his own father died from the disease while a commander of Argentine troops in the brutal War of the Triple Alliance
War of the Triple Alliance
The Paraguayan War , also known as War of the Triple Alliance , was a military conflict in South America fought from 1864 to 1870 between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay...
in 1866. Following an internship at the General Women’s Hospital, he graduated with a Medical Degree in 1870, and despite his early epidemiological experience, wrote his thesis on hiccup
Hiccup
A hiccup or hiccough is a myoclonus of the diaphragm that repeats several times per minute. In humans, the abrupt rush of air into the lungs causes the vocal cords to close, creating a "hic" sound....
s. His efforts as an Army doctor in the Paraguayan front, and during the historic, 1871 yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
epidemic in Buenos Aires, however, earned him renown, and a professorship at the university in 1873. He first entered into public service with his appointment as the nation’s Director of Public Health by President Domingo Sarmiento.
A supporter of Buenos Aires Province
Buenos Aires Province
The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...
advocate Adolfo Alsina
Adolfo Alsina
Adolfo Alsina Maza was an Argentine lawyer and Unitarian politician, and one of the founders of the Partido Autonomista and the National Autonomist Party.-Biography:...
's Autonomist Party
Autonomist Party
The Autonomist Party was a political party in the Dalmatian political scene, that existed for around 70 years of the nineteenth century and until World War I. Its goal was to maintain the autonomy of the Kingdom of Dalmatia within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as opposed to the unification with the...
, he was elected to the provincial legislature in 1874, and was named vice president of the chamber before his election to the Lower House of Congress
Argentine Chamber of Deputies
The Chamber of Deputies is the lower house of the Argentine National Congress. This Chamber holds exclusive rights to create taxes, to draft troops, and to accuse the President, the ministers and the members of the Supreme Court before the Senate....
in 1876. He became a leading liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
during his two terms in Congress, and emerged as the chief counterpoint to conservative congressional powerbroker Aristóbulo del Valle
Aristóbulo del Valle
Aristóbulo del Valle was a lawyer and politician born in Dolores, . He was, together with Leandro Alem, one of the founders of the Radical Civic Union....
. A man of varied interests, Wilde also wrote for a number of newspapers, and directed La República for four years. His erstwhile classmate, President Julio Roca, appointed him Minister of Justice and Education in 1882. Wilde had record sums invested in the Colegio Nacional system, as well as in normal school
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
s. He enacted Law 1420, the nation’s first comprehensive laws mandating secular education
Secular education
Secular education is the system of public education in countries with a secular government or separation between religion and state.An example of a highly secular educational system would be the French public educational system, going as far as to ban conspicuous religious symbols in schools.In...
, as well as 1565 and 2393, which mandated civil marriage
Civil marriage
Civil marriage is marriage performed by a government official and not a religious organization.-History:Every country maintaining a population registry of its residents keeps track of marital status, and most countries believe that it is their responsibility to register married couples. Most...
s, thereby lessening the influential Catholic Church's control over the two key institutions.
These reforms helped earn him the nomination to the powerful Internal Affairs Minister’s post by Roca’s hand-picked successor, Miguel Juárez Celman, in 1886. Wilde focused efforts on public health for the rapidly growing population, and commissioned Eduardo Madero
Eduardo Madero
Eduardo Madero was an Argentine merchant, banker and developer.-Life and times:Eduardo Madero was born in Buenos Aires, in 1823, to a family of farmers. A nephew of publisher Florencio Varela, his uncle's enmity with the Governor of Buenos Aires Province, Juan Manuel de Rosas, led Madero to...
, a financier with ties to Barings Bank
Barings Bank
Barings Bank was the oldest merchant bank in London until its collapse in 1995 after one of the bank's employees, Nick Leeson, lost £827 million due to speculative investing, primarily in futures contracts, at the bank's Singapore office.-History:-1762–1890:Barings Bank was founded in 1762 as the...
, to develop a new port (in what later became Puerto Madero
Puerto Madero
Puerto Madero, also known within the urban planning community as the Puerto Madero Waterfront, is a barrio of the Argentine capital at Buenos Aires CBD, occupying a significant portion of the Río de la Plata riverbank and representing the latest architectural trends in the city of Buenos...
). These initiatives complemented his earlier work at the Justice Ministry by advancing the then isolated country’s social and economic modernization — a key tenet of the Generation of 1880, as those who shared in the policy became known. The death of an illustrious uncle, Dr. José Antonio Wilde (1813–1887), led to his authorizing the renaming of the settlement
Wilde, Buenos Aires
Wilde is a town in the Avellaneda Partido of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It forms part of the Greater Buenos Aires urban agglomeration.Wilde is the most populous district in Avellaneda, with 65,881 inhabitants. Originating with the estancia founded by Luis Gaitán around 1600, the settlement...
, today a suburb of the Argentine capital, in the town doctor’s name in 1888.
The Panic of 1890
Panic of 1890
The Panic of 1890 was an acute depression, although less serious than other panics of the era. It was precipitated by the near insolvency of Barings Bank in London. Barings, led by Edward Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke, faced bankruptcy in November 1890 due mainly to excessive risk-taking on poor...
and resulting collapse of the state’s relationship with Barings led to the Revolution of the Park
Revolution of the Park
The Revolution of the Park was an uprising against the national government of Argentina that took place on 26 July 1890 and started with the takeover of the Buenos Aires Artillery Park. It was led by members of the Civic Union against the presidency of Miguel Juárez Celman...
, after which President Juárez Celman and his cabinet resigned. Wilde became a world traveler during the next eight years, touring the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, and throughout Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, publishing his voluminous travel diaries in Travels and Observations, and By Land and by Sea. Devoting himself to writing, he drew on his medical background to publish Lessons in Hygiene and Lessons in Legal Medicine and Toxicology, as well as Prometheus and Company, an account of his medical experience. He returned to public service upon Roca’s reelection as President in 1898, and was again named Director of Public Health. A coinciding outbreak of the bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
in Asunción
Asunción
Asunción is the capital and largest city of Paraguay.The "Ciudad de Asunción" is an autonomous capital district not part of any department. The metropolitan area, called Gran Asunción, includes the cities of San Lorenzo, Fernando de la Mora, Lambaré, Luque, Mariano Roque Alonso, Ñemby, San...
, Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
, prompted Wilde to organize a humanitarian mission to the affected area, appointing the nation’s foremost epidemiologist
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
at the time, Dr. Carlos Malbrán, as its leader.
President Roca appointed Wilde Ambassador to the United States in 1900. He continued to lend his expertise to, among others, the 1901 International Conference of Sanitation in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
, and the 1902 International Conference on Blindness. Subsequently, he held ambassadorial posts in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, the Netherlands, and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. There, he represented Argentina in the 1913 Brussels Conference on the Polar region
Polar region
Earth's polar regions are the areas of the globe surrounding the poles also known as frigid zones. The North Pole and South Pole being the centers, these regions are dominated by the polar ice caps, resting respectively on the Arctic Ocean and the continent of Antarctica...
s, but died in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
shortly afterwards. He was buried in La Recoleta Cemetery
La Recoleta Cemetery
La Recoleta Cemetery is a famous cemetery located in the exclusive Recoleta neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Perón, Raúl Alfonsín, and several presidents of Argentina.- History :...
.