Biography

He was born in 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...

 in 1849, son of colonel Matías Ramos Mejía and Francisca Madero. He made studies of medicine, promoting changes to the academic standards in 1871, which would be achieved between 1873 and 1880. He graduated in 1879, with a thesis about brain trauma.

He kept working at 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...

, and headed the newly created professorship of nerve pathology in 1887. He made further studies of nerve and mental pathology, being considered later as one of the first researchers of psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 in Argentina. He was vicepresident of the Buenos Aires municipal commission in 1882, first director of public assistance in 1883, national deputee between 1888 and 1892, head of the National department of hygiene between 1893 and 1899, and president of the National Counsil of Education. He died in 1914.

Work as historian

His first book, "Neurosis de los hombres célebres en la historia argentina" was started during his studies, and published in 1887. His work was influenced by Vicente Fidel López

Vicente Fidel López

Vicente Fidel López was an Argentine historian, lawyer and politician. He was a son of writer and politician Vicente López y Planes.-Biography:...

, and influenced later historians as José Ingenieros

José Ingenieros

José Ingenieros was an Argentine physician, pharmaceutic, positivist philosopher and essayist.He was born Giuseppe Ingegneri in Palermo , and graduated from the University of Buenos Aires School of Medicine in 1900...

, Lucio López and Luis Agote

Luis Agote

Luis Agote was an Argentine physician and researcher. He was one of the first to perform a non-direct blood transfusion using sodium citrate as an anticoagulant...

.

As a historian, he rejected the current tradition of making studies of history with the point of view fixed on elites or notable key people, but rather on the social groups that promoted those those peoples into importance. He considered the Argentine War of Independence

Argentine War of Independence

The Argentine War of Independence was fought from 1810 to 1818 by Argentine patriotic forces under Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli and José de San Martín against royalist forces loyal to the Spanish crown...

 as the result of romantic peoples, the Argentine Civil War

Argentine Civil War

The Argentine Civil Wars were a series of internecine wars that took place in Argentina from 1814 to 1876. These conflicts were separate from the Argentine War of Independence , though they first arose during this period....

 as the result of aggressive peoples, and his own time period of 1890 as the result of passive peoples.

He included phrenologist

Phrenology

Phrenology is a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules...

 analysis of historical peoples, as part of a new wave of positivist

Positivism

Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....

historians that sought to combine history with science. However, phrenology is currently rejected as a pseudo-science.

Works

• Neurosis de los hombres célebres en la historia Argentina (1887)
• Las multitudes argentinas (1899)
• La locura en la historia. Contribución al estudio psicopatológico del fanatismo religioso y sus persecuciones (1895)
• Los simuladores del talento en las luchas por la personalidad y la vida (1904)
• Rosas y su tiempo (1907)