1903 lot of 2 autographed postcards Uruguay Praha doctor medical Verocay bodies

Description

Autographed postcards (2) of a famous medical doctor
José Juan Verocay (Paysandú, June 16, 1876-Teplice, December 25, 1927) was a Uruguayan pathologist who spent much of his life in Bohemia. He described the Verocay bodies, of importance in the diagnosis of schwannoma.
Biography
He was born to a Tyrolean father and a Piedmontese mother on June 16, 1876 in Paysandú. His primary education was developed under family supervision with a Spanish teacher named Manuel G. Álvarez. In 1887, his father took him to Cortina d'Ampezzo (Veneto), a city near the town of Verocai, where he was left in the care of his uncle Fortunato Verocay, who taught him Italian, German and Latin. He finished his studies in Trento in 1897, the year in which he entered the Faculty of Medicine of the Charles University in Prague.
He enrolled in the Institute of Pathological Anatomy, then headed by Professor Hans Chiari. In 1904 he obtained the title of Doctor Medicinae Universale and the following year he published his first articles. In 1906 he returned to Uruguay for six months, during which the dean of the Montevideo School of Medicine offered him the direction of the recently created Institute of Pathological Anatomy. Verocay accepted the proposal and returned to Prague to plan his move. Months later, receiving no news, he wrote a letter stating that he had been offered a teaching position in exchange for giving up his Uruguayan nationality, which he refused. Since he was not answered, he continued to work as head of the Institute of Pathology in Prague.
In 1910 he published his most famous article, Zur Kenntnis der Neurofibrome (On Knowledge of Neurofibromas), in which he described the bodies that bear his name today. On December 15 of that same year, the position of associate professor (Privatdozent) was conferred on him by the Prague Teachers' College, an exceptionality for a foreigner. During the First World War he was part of the Military Health in Vienna, working in the war hospital for infectious diseases as a prosector; in 1918 he was distinguished with the honorary plaque of officer of the Red Cross.1
He returned to his native country in 1919 and settled in Paso de los Mellizos (Río Negro). There he worked as a general practitioner in the family business. He came to improvise a laboratory in a shed to continue his research. A year later he married Carlota Ruhr, with whom he had four children, and moved to Montevideo. In 1921 he joined the subsection of pathological anatomy, cytology, histology and autopsies of the Military Health in the Central Hospital of the Armed Forces of Uruguay, created that same year, of which he came to occupy the position of head of the subsection in a few months. . He helped form the hospital museum.
In 1922 he obtained authorization from the authorities of the Montevideo School of Medicine to teach a free course on Pathological Anatomy, which had little success. He aspired to the position of professor of this subject in 1924, although it was awarded to Eugenio Lasnier in a report that aroused criticism among doctors and students who expressed themselves in publications such as El Estudiante Libre. Verocay asked the National Administration Council to reconsider the ruling, but it was dismissed. Also in 1924, he joined the School of Dentistry, which belonged to the Faculty of Medicine, at the invitation of Santiago Sartori, its director. He competed the following year for the position of Professor of Pathological Anatomy at this institution. At the initiative of Américo Ricaldoni, in 1927 he was appointed head of the Pathological Anatomy Laboratory of the Neurology Institute of Montevideo, a position he held for only 64 days since, afflicted by his weakened health, on August 26 he decided to travel to Vienna to consult cardiologist friends. His condition worsened on arrival in Hamburg and he died in Teplice on December 25, 1927.
His remains were repatriated in 1928 at the initiative of the National Administration Council to be buried on April 10, 1930 in the pantheon of the Servants of the Fatherland of the Buceo cemetery in Montevideo.