Arístides Agramonte Simoni

He was born in Puerto Príncipe, the current city of Camagüey, and died in New York, USA. Dr. Arístides Agramonte Simoni was the first Cuban to be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Except for his maternal grandfather, the licentiate José Marcos Simoni y Ricard, a notable physician native to the city of Camagüey, member of an Italian family, his other family branches were deeply Cuban: the Agramonte, Piña, Agüero, Porro, Argilagos and Guinferrer families, all with great patriotic feelings.

His father, the licentiate Eduardo Agramonte Piña, physician and second cousin of Major General Ignacio Agramonte Loynaz, whose first surname has given its name to the city and province of Camagüey, was equally a legendary hero who held high positions in the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) as a member of the Chamber of Representatives of the Republic in Arms, Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of State in the government of President Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y López del Castillo, died valiantly in the battle of San José del Chorrillo, on March 8, 1872 when he held the rank of brigadier general. His mother, Matilde Simoni Argilagos, was the sister of Amalia, wife of Ignacio Agramonte; two of their maternal uncles also fought heroically in that war.

Five months after Arístides was born, his father took up arms with Salvador Cisneros Betancourt, Ignacio Agramonte and a group of Camagüey revolutionaries at the farm "Las Clavellinas". The licentiate Simoni with his family took refuge at one of his farms outside the city and from there helped the revolutionaries. In 1870 the ranch is surprised by Spanish troops and the wife, two daughters and grandchildren of the licentiate Simoni are taken prisoner, though he managed to escape.

Taken prisoner to Puerto Príncipe, the family remained there until August 18 of that same year when they managed to leave for New York, where the Camagüey physician joined them and they moved to Mexico, to reside in the city of Mérida, Yucatán. When the Pact of Zanjón occurred in 1878, the licentiate Simoni returned to Camagüey, where he died years later on January 17, 1890.

Matilde Simoni with her son moved in 1880 to the city of New York. Arístides Agramonte, who had begun his primary education at the "El Afán" school in the city of Mérida, completed it in the public schools of New York, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886.

He pursued his medical degree at Columbia University in that same city, where he obtained his doctorate in June 1892, with special honors including the Harsen Prize. José Martí wrote about him in the newspaper Patria:

The name of one's parents is an obligation for children, and he has no right to the respect that goes everywhere with the shadow of a glorious father, the son who does not continue his virtues. Of two young Cubans from the emigration this can never be said, neither of Arístides Agramonte, son of that strong and seductive Eduardo who still lives in our hearts, nor of Ventura Fuentes [...].

On the same day [...] they received their medical degrees, after excellent studies, the two young Cubans [...] Agramonte, who in close competition carried away in his hand one of the university prizes. In the foreign classroom both upheld the reputation of the Cuban student: on foreign marble both learned to mend broken arms, to revive faint chests, to cure wounds.- When, with just tears of pride, the virtuous parents watched from their box the prize for the talent and perseverance of their sons; when the enamored eyes of his mother, Mrs. Matilde Simoni de Castillo, followed the arrogant Arístides".

In New York from 1892 to 1898 he developed brilliant medical work and achieved solid scientific training: internal physician, by competitive examination, of Roosevelt Hospital, in the Medical Service (1892-1893) and in the Surgical Service (1893-1894); visiting physician of the Department of Childhood Diseases at Bellevue Hospital and West Side Dispensary (1894-1898); medical inspector by competitive examination of the Department of Health of the city of New York (1895-1897) and bacteriologist of the Department of Health of the city of New York, by competitive examination (1897-1898).

Active conspirator for Cuban independence in the revolutionary clubs of New York, when the United States entered our last war of independence against Spain, he entered as an attached physician to the army of that country in April 1898 and remained as such until October 1902.

Already in Cuba he was appointed head of the Laboratory of Pathological Anatomy and Bacteriology of the Cuba Division established in Military Hospital Number One, the current "General Calixto García" Surgical and Medical Teaching Hospital and in this same institution he was appointed visiting physician of the Service of Tropical Diseases in August 1900, when it was already Municipal Hospital Number One.

At the University of La Habana he revalidated his studies and on January 25, 1900 received his degree as licentiate in medicine. On July 30, 1900 he completed the exercises for the doctorate degree, in which he presented his thesis "The parasitology of malaria in humans".

He participated in the quarterly competition held in 1901 by the Medical-Pharmaceutical Association of the Island of Cuba, with his Memoir: What are the duties of physicians with their colleagues in professional practice, where he obtained the first prize.

He obtained by competitive examination the position of auxiliary professor and head of the Laboratory of the Chair of Bacteriology and Experimental Pathology of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of La Habana on September 13, 1900 and on April 9, 1901 was promoted to full professor, a position he held until the Teaching Law of 1924 divided the chair. From that moment he retained only the first subject, then as a chair, until he resigned on July 4, 1931, when the University was closed by the government of General Gerardo Machado, to go abroad.

An eminent physician and father of Cuban Microbiology. Full Professor of Bacteriology and Experimental Pathology at the University of La Habana. Member of the Commission appointed to study infectious diseases and verify the theory of transmission of yellow fever, developed by Carlos J. Finlay, of whom he was a collaborator.

He served as a Member of the Commission of Infectious Diseases belonging to the National Health Authority, which extended its scope of action to the examination and diagnosis of all communicable diseases, and his outstanding work in that position places him among the men who laid the foundations of the health organization in Cuba.

Likewise, he had active participation in the National Medical Congresses: to the I he presented his work titled Etiology and prophylaxis of Malaria in Cuba (1905), to the III a Plan for a sanitary campaign against bubonic plague (1915).

He participated in the XV International Medical Congress, held in Lisbon on April 19, 1906, with a Report on yellow fever. In 1907 he attended as a delegate of Cuban health at the Physiotherapy Congress held in Rome, Italy, and participated in the XIV International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, held in Berlin. Between December 27, 1915 and January 8, 1916, the II Pan-American Scientific Congress was held in Washington D.C., in which he presented his work: The current situation of yellow fever. Six years later, he served as president of the VI Pan-American Medical Congress, which took place in La Habana.

He was Founder of the Cuban Society of Tropical Medicine, as well as Member of the Royal Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana and of scientific societies in various parts of the world.

He obtained the appointment of Honorary Professor of Harvard University and was decorated with the Grand Cross "Carlos J. Finlay". He also had outstanding participation in the sanitation of the Panama Canal zone and was proposed for the Nobel Prize.

He published textbooks for his two subjects, Lessons in Experimental Pathology, La Habana (1922) and Compendium of Bacteriology. Bacteriological Technique, La Habana, (1924) and nearly 150 monographs and scientific articles, especially on tropical medicine topics. He was a full academician of the Academy of Medical, Physical and Natural Sciences of La Habana; titular member and president of the Society of Clinical Studies of La Habana; president of the Commission of Infectious Diseases; president of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country; president of the IV National Medical Congress, La Habana (1917); honorary president of the V National Medical Congress, La Habana (1920); president of the VI Latin American Medical Congress, La Habana (1922); honorary president of the VI Pan-American Health Conference, La Habana (1924) and Secretary of Health and Welfare (1922 to 1923).

He received high honors such as: the Brent Prize from the Academy of Sciences of France in 1912; the Doctorate in Sciences (Honoris Causa) from Columbia University, USA in 1914; the Doctorate in Sciences (Honoris Causa) from the Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Peru in 1925 and the Doctorate in Laws (Honoris Causa) from Tulane University, Louisiana in 1929. When he died in New Orleans on August 17, 1931 he held the position of Chief Professor of the Group of Chairs of Tropical Medicine at the University of Louisiana.