# Agustín  Palomino Sanabria

**Date of birth:** August 18, 1717

**Date of death:** December 8, 1793

**Categories:** Science, Doctor, professor

He is among the professors who in the early times made some effort to improve the conditions of anatomy teaching, even without effective means to achieve it, who assumed his position in 1746, following the resignation of doctor Julian Recio de Oquendo.

For almost 80 years the chair of Anatomy at the Royal and Pontifical University of Havana functioned with a purely theoretical character, since the students who attended it during that time did not receive a single practical demonstration; not even the one that could have been provided by the wax organ models that were available then.

This situation was even disadvantageous for the same professors who held it, as evidenced by the resignation that doctor Recio de Oquendo made from the chair long before completing the established time of his position.

Agustín Palomino Sanabria was born in Havana on August 18, 1717. He studied at the Convent of San Juan de Letrán, where he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts on August 18, 1735. He pursued courses in Medicine at the University and graduated as a Bachelor in that Faculty on March 17, 1739.

After completing the two years of required practice, he was admitted to examination and approved by the Royal Court of the Protomedicato of Havana, which issued him his degree on March 23, 1741, signed by the protomedic Francisco Teneza y Rubira, which he presented before the Cabildo on April 14 following. On July 17, 1743 he achieved the degree of Licentiate in Medicine, in whose exercises he presented a thesis on purgatives, and on the 28th of the same month he received the Doctor's hood.

As noted before, due to the resignation that doctor Recio de Oquendo made from the chair of Anatomy, which he had obtained by opposition at the death of also doctor Esteban de los Ángeles Vázquez, doctor Agustín Sanabria competed for it and obtained it in 1746.

The teaching he imparted in his chair meant true progress in the subject for the time, since his explanations were based on the Treatise on Anatomy by J. B. Winslow, who was then a true luminary in the field. Although the work of this author was notable for its clarity and order, it was much more so because in each of its parts the study of nature manifested itself with greater force than consultation of the authors who had preceded him.

As proof of his indisputable merit it is worth noting that his Exposition anatomique de la structure du corps humaine was the subject of numerous reproductions and translations into English, German and Italian because, in addition to systematizing the knowledge of his time, he was the first to discard physiological details and speculative explanations in relation to the function of organs. Hence the very important role that doctor Sanabria played in teaching Anatomy, confined until then within the narrow limits of theory, with the application of Winslow's postulates. This clearly represented a milestone in the knowledge of human anatomy in Cuba. After completing his first six-year term in the position of chair in 1751, he again competed for it and obtained it for a new period. Two years later he resigned from his position, with no record of the reasons.

The purpose of making known the precursor physicians of medical teaching in Cuba has been the motivation for bringing to light the few biographical data available about doctor Sanabria left by the annals of the 18th Century. By them it can be revealed that he distinguished himself by his culture and love of sciences; that from a very young age he held a preferential place in the university faculty; that he was Master of Ceremonies at the University in 1745 and Commissioner for the year in 1746, physician at the Hospital San Juan de Dios and Fiscal Promoter of the Protomedicato. In 1741 he married Clara Antonia Burgielos from whom he was widowed and, in 1747, he contracted second marriage with María Morales de Calvo.

He died in Havana, at the age of 76, on December 8, 1793.