Eugenio Espejo

Eugenio Espejo (1747 to 1795) was a physician, writer and lawyer born in Quito in the Royal Audiencia of Quito, in what is now Ecuador. Of indigenous and mixed descent, he trained in medicine despite racial discrimination and practised in a city that had very few doctors. In 1785 the town council asked him to write about smallpox, and his treatise on preventing the disease blamed poor hygiene, bad sanitation and weak medical training, with remarks on microorganisms and the spread of illness. This earned him the reputation of Quito's first hygienist. He also edited Quito's first newspaper, Primicias de la Cultura de Quito, and wrote satires of colonial education, economy and officials that led to his imprisonment shortly before his death in 1795. He is remembered as a pioneer of public health and of Enlightenment thought in colonial Ecuador.