Eliodoro Mercado
 | This article may require copy editing for idiomatic english usage. (September 2024) |
Eliodoro Mercado | |
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| Born | Eliodoro Mercado y Donato 3 July 1866 |
| Died | c. 1933 |
| Alma mater | Colegio de San Juan de Letran (BA) University of Santo Tomas |
| Occupation(s) | physician, army surgeon, medical researcher |
| Works |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Medicine |
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Eliodoro Donato Mercado (1866–1933), or Eliodoro Mercado y Donato,[1] was a Filipino physician and army surgeon who, along with Victor Heiser, made a method of injecting chaulmoogra oil on treating leprosy.[2] His work was published in 1914 titled, "Leprosy in the Philippines and its Treatment".[3][4] He was considered as the "greatest leprologist of the Philippines" according to Zoilo M. Galang.[5]
He was also founding member of Colegio Médico-Farmacéutico of the Philippines and ex-supernumerary surgeon in the Spanish Army.[4][3]
Biography
[edit]Born in Santa Cruz, Manila on July 3, 1866,[6] he was one of the famed graduates of the University of Santo Tomas at the time when the university first opened its medical course since 1871.[7]
He first studied at Colegio Colegio de San Juan de Letran from 1883 to 1885.[6] Mercado served at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in 1885 where he dealt with cholera cases.[8] At the time he was a medical student during the 1882 cholera epidemic in Manila, Mercado described that people would avoid Calle Cervantes and San Lazaro estate due to the unbearable stench of decaying bodies.[9][8]
He graduated from the University of Santo Tomas in 1893.[10] He became auxillary surgeon for Spanish military in Malate, Manila in October 1, 1898.[11][6] Due to the request from Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, he worked at makeshift hospitals at Pandacan, Tayuman, and Bambang.[6] After that, he became a resident physician in the Leper Department at San Lazaro Hospital in 1900.[3][4] He was appointed for the Philippine civil service under Secretary of the Interior Dean Conant Worcester.[11] In 1903, Mercado passed his medical board exam and stayed at the hospital for most of his career.[6]
He died in 1933 at Manila.[6]
Research
[edit]Victor Heiser who was Chief Quarantine Officer and Director of Health for the Philppine Islands at the time visited the Louisiana Leprosy Home. There, he gained a favourable impression of using chaulmoogra oil for leprosy patients and learned better techniques on how to administer the oil orally from Ralph Hopkins and Isadore Dyer.[2]
Mercado, who was in immediate charge as a physician at the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila, helped Heiser to give a thorough trial for the oil on leprosy patients.[2][1] The new method was initiated at the hospital in 1909. The results were successful but oral administration gave patients nausea and resistance for taking the drug. Physicians at the hospital also tried using hypodermic injection but did not satisfactorily absorbed the oil.[2]
Later, both Heiser and Mercado made a camphor-resorcin solution of chaulmoogra oil. Results were positive as the solution was readily absorbed.[2] After the first case was treated, Heiser wrote in his autobiography:[2]
Few can imagine with what a thrill we watched the first case to which chaulmoogra was administered in hypodermic form, how we watched for the first faint suspicion of eyebrows beginning to grow in again and sensation returning to paralyzed areas.
In 1913, Heiser published the first two cases under the Public Health Reports. According to his publication, leprosy bacilli was no longer found using clinical microscopical examination on two patients.[2] As for Mercado, his findings were published in 1914 and presented before the Second Regional Assembly of Filipino physicians and pharmacists.[3]
Reception
[edit]Worcester sent a message to U. S. President William Howard Taft which referred to the Assembly Bill no. 1043 in February 1912. The bill concerns the payment of 30,000 pesos for the testing of the "Mercado mixture". He further praised Mercado for his loyalty in the Bureau of Health.[12]
Legacy
[edit]The "Mercado mixture", named after him, was a treatment for leprosy first developed in the Philippines. It is composed of 60 cubic centimetres of chaulmoogra oil and camphorated oil and 4 grams of resorcin. While initially showing promise with a high recovery rate according to Heiser in 1914, many patients experienced relapses. Later reports indicated some improvement or arrest of the disease, but the method was painful and not considered a cure. Nevertheless, the mixture was considered a milestone on further studies about the therapeutic effects of chaulmoogra oil.[13]
Heiser took most of the credit for the "Mercado mixture",[14] which led him to be a nominee for the 1931 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.[15] Philippine biographer and historian, Carlos Quirino, stated:
...Researched on the subject of leprosy until his death. In the opinion of one biographer, Mercado deserved the Nobel prize for his research on that disease...
— Carlos Quirino, Who's who in Philippine history (1995)[6]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Revista de medicina y cirugía de la Habana (in Spanish). 1917.
- ^ a b c d e f g Parascandola, John (2003). "Chaulmoogra Oil and the Treatment of Leprosy" (PDF). Pharmacy in History. 45 (2): 47–57. ISSN 0031-7047.
- ^ a b c d Mercado, Eliodoro Donato (1915). Leprosy in the Philippines and Its Treatment. Tip Linotype del Col. de Sto. Tomas.
- ^ a b c "Eliodoro Donato Mercado | International Leprosy Association - History of Leprosy". leprosyhistory.org. Retrieved 2024-09-19.
- ^ Galang, Zoilo M. (1932). Leaders of the Philippines: Inspiring Biographies of Successful Men and Women of the Philippines. National Publishing Company.
- ^ a b c d e f g Quirino, Carlos (1995). Who's who in Philippine History. Tahanan Books. ISBN 978-971-630-046-8.
- ^ Murillo, Agapita (June 1944). "Public Welfare Services in the Philippines, 1898-1941". Social Service Review. 18 (2): 189–204. doi:10.1086/634860. ISSN 0037-7961.
- ^ a b Interior, Philippines Department of the; Worcester, Dean Conant (1909). A History of Asiatic Cholera in the Philippine Islands. Bureau of Printing.
Dr. Eliodoro Mercado, who was a medical student at the time of this epidemic, states that when it was at its worst one could not pass along Calle Cervantes or through the San Lazaro estate on account of the odor from decaying bodies.
- ^ Diokno, Maria Serena I. (2016). Hidden Lives, Concealed Narratives: A History of Leprosy in the Philippines (PDF). National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
- ^ Polk's Medical Register and Directory of North America. Polk. 1904.
- ^ a b Elihu Root Collection of United States Documents Relating to the Philippine Islands. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1903.
- ^ Commission, Philippines Legislature Philippine (1912). Journal of the Philippine Commission. Bureau of printing.
- ^ Rogers, Leonard (January 1930). "Recent Advances in the Treatment and Prophylaxis of Leprosy *The Cameron Prize Lecture, delivered before the University of Edinburgh, 18th October 1929". Edinburgh Medical Journal. 37 (1): 1–27. ISSN 0367-1038. PMC 5313897. PMID 29645623.
- ^ Anderson, Warwick (2006-08-21). Colonial Pathologies: American Tropical Medicine, Race, and Hygiene in the Philippines. Duke University Press. doi:10.1515/9780822388081-013. ISBN 978-0-8223-8808-1.
Eliodoro Mercado, of San Lazaro Hospital, had prepared the first injectable form of chaulmoogra in 1910, but Heiser took most of the credit for his invention.
- ^ Mehlin, Hans (2024-05-21). "Nomination for Physiology or Medicine 1931". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 2024-09-22.
Heiser and Rogers: The treatment and cure of leprosy by means of derivatives of chaulmoogra oil
External links
[edit]- Rae, Ian R. (2005), "Granville Perkins and Leprosy Chemotherapy in the Philippines" (PDF), Bulletin History of Chemistry, 30 (1), University of Melbourne
- 1915 English translation of Leprosy in the Philippines and its treatment by Eliodoro Mercado, available in the Internet Archive