The Institute of Hygiene and the teaching of Microbiology in Chile

Abstract

The Institute of Hygiene, founded by the Chilean government in 1892, apart from its functions in the field of public health, actively par-ticipated in the undergraduate teaching of Bacteriology at the School of Medicine of the University of Chile. The chair of Bacteriology founded in 1895 was transferred in 1902 to the serotherapy section of the mentioned institute (one of the five buildings that made up the institute). The chair remained in that place for three decades, being transferred by Dr. Hugo Vaccaro back to the School of Medicine in 1930. On the other hand, the Extraordinary Chair of Bacteriology continued to be linked to the said institute and to its immediate suc-cessor, the Bacteriological Institute of Chile. However, after the fire at the School of Medicine in 1948, the ordinary chair had to return to its old buildings on the banks of the Mapocho and at the same time the extraordinary chair moved to a new location in Ñuñoa.