Tomás José Domingo Rafael del Rosario Romay Chacón

A learned man with truly encyclopedic knowledge and considered the initiator of the Cuban scientific movement, he was a distinguished member and director of the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País.

In the period between 1803 and 1804, he introduced the smallpox vaccine to the Island, a fact considered the first introduction of technology in Cuba.

He carried out important reforms in the teaching of Medicine, stood out in the struggle against scholasticism; together with Bishop Espada he fought and eliminated burials in convents, an essential hygienic measure, and for these purposes the Universal Cemetery of La Habana was built.

Physician, humanist, and scholar. He is remembered, above all, for having spread anti-smallpox vaccination in Cuba. For his actions in disease prevention and health promotion, he is considered the first Cuban hygienist. Considered as the initiator of the Scientific Movement in Cuba. He is credited with a considerable contribution to progress, especially in Medicine, Chemistry, Botany, Agriculture, Hygiene, Education and Culture in general.

He was born on Empedrado Street No. 71 between Compostela and Habana (where the "Cuba" building with the number 360 is currently located) in La Habana Vieja.

He was the first of 18 children born to the marriage of Lorenzo Romay y de la Oliva and María de los Ángeles Chacón.

On January 4, 1796, he married Mariana González, and their children were Pedro María, Juan José, José de Jesús, María de los Ángeles, Micaela, and Marian.

He received his primary education from his paternal uncle Fray Pedro de Santa María Romay, of the Convent of the Reverend Preachers, who had seen in him early manifestations of perspicacious acuteness and intelligence and therefore took him under his care to provide him with primary education.

After obtaining the title of Bachelor of Arts on March 24, 1783, he began studies in Jurisprudence at the Seminario de San Carlos, which he would abandon convinced that, as his uncle Fray Pedro had argued to him, "the lawyer was exposed to greater responsibility of conscience," becoming a physician.

In colonial Cuba, the profession of physician was considered proper to the lower classes and therefore little esteemed. However, he obeyed more the impulses of his vocation than social conventions, and chose the career of medicine, from which he obtained the title of Bachelor in 1789; becoming the initiator of Cuban Medicine.

In Romay's time, the condition of Bachelor of Medicine did not authorize one to practice the profession; for that, a two-year postgraduate practicum with an experienced physician was required. After his graduation, the young man completed the two years of required practice with doctor Manuel Sacramento to present himself for examination before the Real Tribunal del Protomedicato. On September 12, 1791, Romay became the thirty-third graduate of Medicine in Cuba.

He then became one of the principal intellectual figures of the progressive movement promoted by the great bourgeoisie (first reformist current) of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, together with statesman and economist Francisco de Arango y Parreño (1765-1837), philosopher José Agustín Caballero, (1762-1835) and poet Manuel de Zequeira (1764-1846), as well as Nicolás Calvo de la Puerta y O'Farrill, who served as mentor to the young physician.

He also advocated for free primary education and pushed for the provision of funds for the creation and maintenance of schools, in addition to offering his cooperation for the implementation of new teaching methods with the goal of improving and spreading instruction.

He was a professor and treasurer at the University of La Habana. In 1791 he presented himself as a candidate for the chair of Pathology at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de La Habana, with a thesis on the contagion of phthisis, which he obtained by opposition on December 6. Obtaining the title of Licentiate in Medicine on December 24, 1791. He completed a doctorate at the University of La Habana where he graduated on June 24, 1792.

While completing his two years of medical practice (1789-1791) with doctor Sacramento, he was a co-founder on October 24, 1790, with governor Luis de Las Casas Aragorri (1745-1845), of the Papel Periódico de la Habana, (the first Cuban periodic publication of which he was its first editor and director until 1848).

He was also co-founder, together with Las Casas, for a period of 50 years of the Real Sociedad Patriótica de La Habana (currently known as Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País). On January 17, 1793, he was admitted as a regular member of the Society and was a prominent and active member, almost from its creation in 1793. He became an Honorary member in 1834 and director in 1842 of the same. Within the institution, he was the par excellence representative of projects for the modernization of medical practice and the teaching of Medicine in Cuba.

He carried out the humanitarian task of his profession at the Real Casa de Beneficencia, an organization that both he and Las Casas founded around that time.

In addition to being a professor of Philosophy and Pathology at the Real y Pontificia Universidad del Máximo Doctor San Jerónimo de La Habana, he held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1832.

In 1795, he promoted the training as a botanist and chemist of his former student, the young Creole physician José Estévez y Cantal, and in 1817 he began his work of reforming medical education. He based this on the fact that for many years the teaching of practical Anatomy classes with dissections, inaugurated in 1797 by surgeon Francisco Xavier Córdova, had been interrupted.

Thanks, in large measure, to his efforts and the support of the Finance and Army Intendant, Alejandro Ramírez (also Director, at that time, of the Real Sociedad Patriótica de La Habana), between 1819 and 1822 this teaching was re-established at the Hospital Militar de San Ambrosio. He served, for many years, as Inspector of courses at the Military Hospital, appointed by the Real Sociedad Patriótica. In that hospital he came to know well Nicolás José Gutiérrez, the notable surgeon who would succeed him at the head of the Havana medical community, and whom he backed in his first official actions to establish an Academy of Sciences in La Habana (an objective that would only be achieved in 1861, years after Romay's death).

He died at the age of 84, victim of cancer in the early morning of March 30, 1849, at his home located in La Habana, Cuba. His body was embalmed at the Convent of Santo Domingo, by Dr. Gutiérrez.

His most meritorious work that immortalized his name was having introduced and propagated the vaccine in Cuba starting in February 1804.

The inspiration for this contribution was the existence of a smallpox epidemic, which began in December 1803, and caused serious damage in January 1804; as well as the knowledge that the expedition sent by King Carlos IV under the command of physician Francisco Xavier de Balmis, which carried the saving virus, would take time to arrive in La Habana.

In Cuba vaccination was known simply as "inoculation" and was practiced based on European experience. In 1802, Cuban physicians learned of the procedure, published in 1798 by English surgeon Edgard Jenner (1749-1823), which used the pus of cowpox and was therefore called "vaccination." At the behest of the Patriotic Society, Romay began from 1803 his campaign to extend the procedure and abandoned the comforts of home to travel to the interior of the island in search of the desired virus and to fight against the advocates of "inoculation," previously introduced in Cuba and already obsolete, although defended by those "inoculators" who obtained profits from applying it and claimed that vaccination would be ineffective.

To prove the contrary, Romay resorted to a public demonstration risking the lives of two of his sons, previously vaccinated, whom he used as test subjects to overcome fears, doubts, and hesitations regarding its effectiveness.

In January 1804, the first vaccinations were practiced in Santiago de Cuba by French surgeon Vignard; but in February of that same year, a vaccine from Puerto Rico arrived in La Habana.

The campaign of inoculation against vaccination suffered a decisive setback with the arrival at the port of La Habana on May 26, 1804, of the Spanish expedition sent to introduce the vaccine in several Hispanic colonies. But they were surprised to find that the vaccine had already spread throughout the country, thanks to Romay, who had been applying it successfully since February 12.

They therefore created the Junta Central de Vacuna on July 13, 1804, to systematize this practice and appointed Romay as president with the position of Secretary of the Faculty.

His work at the head of this institution proved decisive in ensuring that, at the end of the nineteenth century, smallpox became a rare disease in Cuba, as he advocated for multiple vaccination of each individual and for its mandatory decree for the entire population.

Although he was not successful in these two endeavors, he managed to have Bishop Juan José Díaz de Espada issue a pastoral letter urging people to vaccinate themselves.

Romay's collaboration with the enlightened Bishop of La Habana became closer in relation to his goal of eliminating burials in churches and within the urban perimeter. His work against burials facilitated the construction on February 2, 1806, of the first cemetery of La Habana, known as the Cementerio de Espada. After his entire campaign, he devoted more than three decades to anti-smallpox vaccination.

Work at the Hospital of San Ambrosio
The 1831 payroll consisted of: T. Romay, principal physician with Nicolás del Valle; P. Andreu, senior practitioner; F. Alonso, surgeon in chief; Francisco López, 2nd; and Antonio Miyaya, senior practitioner. Tomás Montes de Oca, who was for many years his senior practitioner, ceased to exist.--- In 1832, Dr. Lorenzo Hernández, who was also a senior practitioner, ceased to exist.--- In 1833 he provided good services during the cholera epidemic.--- In November 1834, the inauguration of a Medical Clinic for teaching in one of its wards took place; and the opening of the "New Museum and Amphitheater" in the building called "Casa de los Capellanes," located adjacent and to the south of San Ambrosio, with which it communicated through a door, avoiding the difficulties that arose when it was in the building across from San Isidro, which facilitated the transfer of bodies.
At the head of the Medical Clinic was placed Dr. Tomás Romay, professor of clinical medicine, and as Chief of the Museum and Amphitheater, Dr. Francisco Alonso Fernández had served for eleven years, assisted by N. J. Gutiérrez, dissector and constructor of anatomical specimens. The teaching of practical anatomy was established on April 16, 1797, with Francisco Javier de Córdova, surgeon in chief of the royal military hospital, where he gave his lectures for more than ten years. In 1819, this teaching was reborn with Italian Dr. José Tasso and D. Antonio de Castro, student of the Real Colegio de Medicina y Cirugía de Cádiz. They were succeeded in 1821 by Dr. Francisco Alonso Fernández, former dissector of the Amphitheater of Cádiz.

The hospital's medical staff in 1835 consisted of Tomás Romay, principal physician; Nicolás del Valle, second; Pedro Andreu, senior practitioner; F. Alonso Fernández, surgeon in chief; Francisco López, 2nd; N. Pinelo, senior practitioner of surgery and dissector of anatomy and orderly D. Govantes.--- In 1836, 4,437 patients entered the hospital, 3,998 left, and 150 died.--- In July 1837, 579 entered, 516 left, 130 died, and 370 remained on August 1st.--- At the end of 1838, N.J. Gutiérrez succeeded Alonso in the chair of Anatomy that was taught in the hospital and Dr. José de la Luz Hernández opened a course in Hygiene in it. Gutiérrez opened the surgery course on September 2, while Pinelo taught Anatomy. Gutiérrez adopted as text the fourth edition of the French Anatomy by Bayle, which Dr. José Atanasio Valdés translated into Spanish. At the end of this period, the Hospital of San Ambrosio was located on San Isidro Street, facing the Hospicio of that name, where the Anatomical Amphitheater remained until 1899. This old building was occupied in the last years of Spanish rule by the Military Intendency (nowadays, a Police Station is located where the hospital once stood, with a front facing Picota, with gardens, built recently). The facade of the old hospital faced south, consisted of two tall sections and rested on five stone arcades. Both upper floors had five medium-sized windows each and the spacious roof had six walls that held the railings in front. To its left was the old Department of Chaplains where the new Amphitheater was installed, better than the one that was in San Isidro, with two small upper sections. To its right was a colonial-style house with its door—beside the hospital with a small upper section—with a tile roof, two windows in front and five on the side of Picota Street. This hospital closed in 1842, when patients were moved to the house that served as the Tobacco Factory (a good print of this hospital on San Isidro Street is found on page 288 of the book Vida y Obras de Tomás Romay by Dr. José López Sánchez, La Habana, 1950).

His extensive work spans the most diverse subjects, and in addition represented the first sign of the transformation of the colony into a nation, contributing to the formation of Cuban nationality. His writings encompassed scientific and literary prose, as well as philosophy, history, and poetry with insights capable of honoring his century.

In addition to being one of the principal editors of the Papel Periódico de la Habana, from its founding in 1791; he collaborated in El Diario de La Habana and the Diario del Gobierno de La Habana, with scientific works and some verses using the pseudonym Matías Moro.

Among his investigations are:
Discourse on the obstacles that have prevented beehives from progressing in the island of Cuba and the means to promote them.
It was published in 1797 at the expense of the Patriotic Society for having earned second place. To make his discourse, he based himself on the bibliography of the period available to him and on the criteria of merchants and farmers, as there is no record in his biography that he had practical experience in beekeeping. The discourse contains the highest contribution to the history of Beekeeping in Cuba and the wax industry.

Discourse on burials outside of towns, published in 1806. A memoir that contributed notably to the Havana population gradually giving preference to the first cemetery the Cuban capital had, the Cementerio de Espada, inaugurated in 1806. Romay also published a detailed description of that cemetery.

The "Dissertation on the malignant fever commonly called black vomit, Epidemic Disease in the West Indies," was presented by Romay before the Real Sociedad Patriótica de La Habana on April 5, 1797, and was published that same year.

A work that became the monograph that inaugurated Cuban scientific bibliography, as it was the first scientific study of yellow fever published in Cuba and earned its author the distinction of being elected Corresponding Academician of the Real Academia de Medicina de Madrid, in 1798.

In his treatise Clinical Medicine (1802), he was inspired by the ideas expressed by the well-known French physician Philippe Pinel to propose his reforms, which were gradually introduced in that subject, especially when Romay himself taught it, from 1834, upon the inauguration of the corresponding chair at the University.

In his "Memory on the introduction and progress of the vaccine in the Island of Cuba," read at the General Meetings of the Sociedad Económica de La Habana on December 12, 1804, he referred to the benefits of the vaccine.

Distinctions
At the time of his death, Romay held among his many titles and distinctions the following:
Corresponding Member of the Real Academia de Medicina de Madrid.
Physician of the Royal Chamber.
Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Royal University.
President and Member of Merit of the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País.
Member of the Vaccine Commission of París and of the Medical Societies of Bordeaux and New Orleans.
Knight Commander of Isabel la Católica.