El sabio Hipólito Unanue

Figura de la revolución médica y amante del país

Abstract

This article examines Hipólito Unanue as a pivotal figure linking Enlightenment science with Peru’s republican nation-building. In medicine, he drove the modernization of teaching and clinical practice through institutional design, updated curricula, and scientific outreach, aligning territorial observation, public health, and professional ethics. His intellectual work—embedded in scholarly networks and enlightened press—turned medical knowledge into a tool for social reform. In parallel, his political and civic engagement made him an agent of emancipation, providing technical judgement, leadership, and a public-minded ethos to the emerging state. We argue that his legacy crystallizes the passage from colonial science to patriotic science, where “healing bodies” and “healing the nation” form a single civilizational project. The study proposes reading Unanue as a physician-statesman, a useful lens to rethink how expert knowledge, citizenship, and public policy interrelate.