History of Latin America's contibution to world neurosurgery

It has been a great honour and pleasure to be invited to speak in front of this prestigious audience at the Academia Mexicana de Cirugía, to which I am honoured to belong myself, on an historical subject of great importance for the knowledge and information of new generations. In this summary, I do not intend to talk about the anthropological aspects of the exploration of the nervous system, which for various reasons have existed in the history of mankind, but will simply talk about the contribution made by enlightened pioneers from Latin America to the development and evolution of this specialised field of surgery during the twentieth century. In 1957, the first International Congress of Neurosurgery took place in Brussels, Belgium, with delegations from neurosurgery societies from Europe, North America and South America. Twelve years before, the first Congreso Sudamericano de Neurocirugía took place in Montevideo. Considered a milestone in the history of international neurosurgery, it was organised by Alejandro Schroeder from Uruguay, Elyseu Paglioli from Brazil and Ramon Carrillo and Rafael Babini from Argentina.