The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines

Last updated

The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines
The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines.jpg
Artist Botong Francisco
Year1953
Medium Oil
Dimensions2.92 m× 2.76 m(9.6 ft× 9.1 ft)
Location National Museum of Fine Arts, Manila

The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines is a painting by Filipino artist Botong Francisco. It was commissioned in 1953 to depict the history of Philippine medicine. It is currently on display in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Manila. [1]

Contents

Background

The paintings FvrMuseuj6650 32.JPG
The paintings

In 1953, Dr. Agerico Sison, then director of Philippine General Hospital, and Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing, director of the National Museum, Dr. Florentino Herrera Jr., and Dr. Constantino Manahan commissioned Botong Francisco to create a painting depicting the history of Philippine medicine. [2]

The painting consists of four oil-on-canvas panels depicting medical practice in the Philippines in four historical eras. They were displayed at the lobby of the Philippine General Hospital for 58 years until their permanent relocation to the Museum Foundation of the Philippines Hall at the National Museum of the Philippines on 27 July 2011.

Restorations

Tomas Bernardo restored the panels in 1974 and 1991. Its 2006 restoration was under Orlando Abinion’s supervision and was funded by the US Department of State’s Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. Abinion's team worked on the restoration in 2006 and 2007, with conservation treatment activities including solubility testing, facing and consolidation of paint layers, cleaning of surfaces and removal of old lining and re-lining, removal of facing, surface dirt and old varnish, grafting of holes and leveling lacunae, and preliminary and final retouching. [3]

The restored works are on indefinite loan from the University of the Philippines, PGH’s principal, and are on permanent exhibit in the National Museum of Fine Arts.

In exchange, the museum hung two reproductions created by photographer Benigno T. Tod III of the same size on the two sides of the PGH lobby.

Cultural significance

On 21 September 2011, the four-panel painting was declared a national treasure for being an “irreplaceable part of the institutional heritage of the Philippine General Hospital and the University of the Philippines, and of the cultural heritage of the nation." [4]

Related Research Articles

Philippine General Hospital Hospital in Manila, Philippines

The Philippine General Hospital, simply referred to as UP–PGH or PGH, is a tertiary state-owned hospital administered and operated by the University of the Philippines Manila. It is designated as the National University Hospital, and the national government referral center. It stands within a 10-hectare (25-acre) site located at the UP Manila Campus in Ermita, Manila. PGH has 1,100 beds and 400 private beds, and has an estimated of 4,000 employees to serve more than 600,000 patients every year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Malacañang Palace</span> Official residence and principal workplace of the President of the Philippines

Malacañang Palace, officially known as Malacañan Palace, is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the Philippines. It is located in the Manila district of San Miguel, and is commonly associated with Mendiola Street. The term Malacañang is often used as a metonym for the president, their advisers, and the Office of the President of the Philippines. The sprawling Malacañang Palace complex includes numerous mansions and office buildings designed and built largely in the bahay na bato and neoclassical styles. Among the presidents of the present Fifth Republic, only Gloria Macapagal Arroyo actually lived in the main palace as both her office and her residence, with all others residing in nearby properties that form part of the larger palace complex. The palace has been seized several times as a result of protests starting with the People Power Revolution of 1986, the 1989 coup attempt, the 2001 Manila riots, and the EDSA III riots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of the Philippines Manila</span> State-funded university in Manila, the Phillipines

The University of the Philippines Manila (UPM) is a state-funded medical and research university located in Ermita, Manila, Philippines. It is known for being the country's center of excellence in the health sciences, including health professional education, training, and research. It is the oldest of eight constituent universities of the University of the Philippines System, even predating the founding of UP by three years. Originally established on December 1, 1905, as the Philippine Medical School and later called as the UP College of Medicine and Surgery on June 10, 1907. It was renamed as University of the Philippines Manila in 1983.

Botong Francisco

Carlos Modesto "Botong" Villaluz Francisco was a Filipino muralist from Angono, Rizal.

<i>Spoliarium</i>

The Spoliarium is a painting by Filipino painter Juan Luna. Luna, working on canvas, spent eight months completing the painting which depicts dying gladiators. The painting was submitted by Luna to the Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1884 in Madrid, where it garnered the first gold medal. The picture recreates a despoiling scene in a Roman circus where dead gladiators are stripped of weapons and garments. Together with other works of the Spanish Academy, the Spoliarium was on exhibit in Rome in April 1884.

Mu Sigma Phi (medical fraternity) Fraternity in the University of the Philippines College of Medicine

The Mu Sigma Phi, or ΜΣΦ is the first fraternity in the University of the Philippines College of Medicine. It is also the first medical fraternity in the Asian region.

The Mu Sigma Phi Sorority, Inc. (μΣΦ), founded on August 27, 1934, is the first medical sorority in the Philippines and in Asia. Aside from being recognized by both the University of the Philippines Manila and UP College of Medicine, it is also registered under the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippines.

Santa Monica Parish Church (Minalin) Church in Pampanga, Philippines

The Santa Monica Parish Church, commonly known as the Minalin Church, is a Baroque church, located in poblacion area of San Nicolas in Minalin, Pampanga, Philippines. The church, built during the Spanish era, was declared a National Cultural Treasure by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the National Museum of the Philippines on August 27, 2011, one of 37 churches in the country bestowed that honor.

History of medicine in the Philippines

The history of medicine in the Philippines discusses the folk medicinal practices and the medical applications used in Philippine society from the prehistoric times before the Spaniards were able to set a firm foothold on the islands of the Philippines for over 300 years, to the transition from Spanish rule to fifty-year American colonial embrace of the Philippines, and up to the establishment of the Philippine Republic of the present. Although according to Dr. José Policarpio Bantug in his book A Short History of Medicine in the Philippines During The Spanish Regime, 1565-1898 there were "no authentic monuments have come down to us that indicate with some certainty early medical practices" regarding the "beginnings of medicine in the Philippines" a historian from the United States named Edward Gaylord Borne described that the Philippines became "ahead of all the other European colonies" in providing healthcare to ill and invalid people during the start of the 17th century, a time period when the Philippines was a colony of Spain. From the 17th and 18th centuries, there had been a "state-of-the-art medical and pharmaceutical science" developed by Spanish friars based on Filipino curanderos that was "unique to the [Philippine] islands."

History of veterinary medicine in the Philippines

The history of veterinary medicine in the Philippines discusses the history of veterinary medicine as a profession in the Philippines. Its history in the Philippines began in 1828, while the Philippines was still a colony of Spain, progressing further during the time when the Philippines became a territory of the United States, until the establishment of the Philippines as an independent Republic in the modern-day era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physical therapy in the Philippines</span>

The history of physical therapy in the Philippines relates how physical therapy started in the Philippines and how it evolved as a profession through three significant phases in the history of the Philippines: from the American era leading to the Japanese occupation of the islands during World War II, and up to the modern-day time period of the independent Philippine Republics. It was introduced in the Philippines ahead of rehabilitation medicine.

Santa Ana Church (Manila) Roman Catholic Church in Santa Ana, Manila, Philippines

The Parish of Our Lady of the Abandoned, also known as the Santa Ana Church and newly declared as the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Abandoned, is a Spanish colonial period church located in the district of Santa Ana in Manila, Philippines. The parish was established by the Franciscan missionaries in 1578 under the patronage of Saint Anne. The present stone church was constructed by Father Vicente Inglés, OFM from 1720 to 1725 and was dedicated to its present patron, the Our Lady of the Abandoned. The revered image of its patron was made in Valencia, Spain in 1713 and arrived in the Philippines in 1717.

Philippine Institute of Architects Architectural society in the Philippines

The Philippine Institute of Architects (PIA) is an architectural society in the Philippines and is the oldest architectural society in Asia. It is composed of noble men and women from the architectural profession of the Philippines. It was founded by renowned architects in 1933 whose ultimate endeavor is the professional development of architecture in the Philippines.

Galo B. Ocampo was a Philippine artist. He was also the first Filipino to study heraldry and was a member of the International Institute of Genealogy and Heraldry in Madrid.

Helen Katharine Forbes American painter (1891–1945)

Helen Katharine Forbes was a Californian artist and arts educator specializing in etching, murals and painting. She is best known for western landscapes, portrait paintings, and her murals with the Treasury Section of Fine Arts and Work Progress Administration (WPA). Forbes was skilled in painting in oil, watercolor, and egg tempera. She painted landscapes of Mexico, Mono Lake and the Sierras in the 1920s, desert scenes of Death Valley in the 1930s, and portraits and still-lifes.

Tanghalang Pambansa

The Tanghalang Pambansa, formerly Theater of Performing Arts, is a theater located in the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in Manila, Philippines.

National Museum Complex (Manila) Museum complex in Manila, Philippines

The National Museum Complex in Rizal Park, Manila is composed of the National Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Anthropology and the National Museum of Natural History and is the home of the National Museum of the Philippines. The Complex is designated as the Central Museum of NM, and all the other museum established outside of Manila will be considered as Satellite Museums. It was established through Republic Act No. 8492, also known as the National Museum Act of 1998, which establishes that the whole Executive House Building, the Department of Finance Building and the Department of Tourism Building in Agrifina Circle, Rizal Park, shall be the permanent and exclusive site of the National Museum, which shall be known as the National Museum Complex. The National Planetarium in Rizal Park, which was managed by the National Museum since 1975, was included in the complex according to Republic Act No. 11333. The National Museum of the Philippines is responsible in managing and developing the Complex.

<i>Filipino Struggles Through History</i> 1964 painting by Botong Francisco

The Filipino Struggles Through History is an artwork by Filipino artist Botong Francisco. The artwork is a declared National Cultural Treasure.

Patrick D. Flores Filipino art curator, critic and historian (b.1969)

Patrick Duarte Flores is a Filipino curator, critic, and professor. Born in Manila, he received degrees in humanities, art history, and Philippine studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman. He is a professor of Art Studies in the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines and curator of the Vargas Museum in Manila. He was also a curator of the Arts Division, Philippine National Museum and curator of the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. He was the artistic director of the 2019 Singapore Biennale.

<i>Camote Diggers</i> Painting by Botong Francisco

Camote Diggers is an unfinished painting and considered as the last artwork by National Artist Botong Francisco prior to his death in 1969.

References

  1. Sedfrey, J. (January 12, 2012). "In Focus: Making Botonga's masterpieces accessible". Republic of the Philippines, Office of the President. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
  2. Orendain, Joan. "National Museum unveils restored 'Botong' murals this week". inquirer.net.
  3. "Restoration of Four Murals by Philippine National Artist Carlos Francisco at the Philippine General Hospital in Manila". U.S. Embassy in the Philippines. January 2, 2006. Retrieved May 7, 2018.PD-icon.svgThis article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  4. "Botong Francisco's paintings at PGH find new home". gmanetwork.com.