Dr. Eusebio Hernandez Perez Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Eusebio Hernandez Perez (1853-1933) was a patriot, scientific and physician specialist in gynecology and obstetrics. At the age of 16, he participated in the uprising of Monte Corojo in the Ten Years War, led by Gabriel Garcia Menocal, future father of General Mario Garcia Menocal. As a result of his conspiratorial spirit, Eusebio was made prisoner near Colon by the famous Chapelgorris de Guamutas, who were a squad of volunteers in that zone led by Tenant Manuel Navia and Sargent Padron, who was also a squad's member and sued Hernandez Perez for having participated in the uprising of Jaguey Grande, and was sentenced to death. So, they took Eusebio to a near mountain and shot him, however, he ran through the trees and miraculously, for his agility and dexterity, they couldn't capture him. He studied in Cardenas, Matanzas and La Habana and in 1874 his family sent him to Madrid to study medicine and was there where he made connection with the revolution for the independence through General Calixto Garcia Iniguez, who after departing from Spain went to New York to begin with the preparations of the Little War of 1878. On August 1879, Eusebio Hernandez had become a true patriot who firmly believed that only the use of the arms would lead to the true independence of his nation, so he cooperated in the organization of the Little War in Santiago de Cuba. Eusebio postponed the defense of his thesis that had to present in order to obtain his bachelor's degree in Medicine, and instead, used that money in his trip back to Cuba, just as Calixto Garcia had ordered him. Once there, he reestablished the contacts with the conspirators that had been interrupted due to the detention of Pedro Martinez Freyre, Pablo Beola, Flor Crombet and Mayia Rodriguez by the Spanish forces. However, the conspiratorial plan failed but he managed to escape to New Orleans. Later, in Kingston, he rejected the representation of the Revolutionary Committee of New York that Marti offered him, but did not get any rest in his fight for the independence under the command of Maximo Gomez, who he had met in Jamaica. On October 1880 he also met Antonio Maceo in Jamaica and their friendship consecrated him as the doctor of almost the entire Maceo family and also was in charge of the delivery of the baby Maceo had with a Jamaican woman named Amelia Marriat: that son was named Antonio Maceo Marriat, who was his only descendant that survived him. Eusebio Hernandez also assisted in 1880 the delivery of Fernando, the son of General Maximo Gomez and wife Bernarda Toro Pelegrin. In 1881, Hernandez Perez arrived to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, where he lived for five years and gave private consultations. There, he also served without any salary as the director of a hospital and gave a class in the School of Medicine because he never wanted to have any permanent position. In 1886, facing the failing of the Plan Gomez-Maceo, he distanced himself from Marti, to whom Eusebio strongly criticized for the structure of the Cuban Revolutionary Party in 1892 and rejected its statutes and authority, rejecting to join Martin even when General Maximo Gomez suggest it to him. Later, Eusebio Hernandez traveled to Spain to conclude his career in Madrid after getting married and moved to Paris in 1888, often making trips to Berlin, where he specialized in Gynecology and Obstetrics. Between 1880 and 1887 his relationship with General Antonio Maceo was very close and even wrote about him: 'He voided the Pacto del Zanjon, reduced it to a truce in Baragua and defeated everyone who intervened in it'. In 1889, Eusebio met in Paris Doctor Pinard, whose scientific and politic history even he considered similar to his, so such affinity gained him the affection of Pinard and that's why Eusebio became one of the disciples of who is considered a reformer of the specialty of contemporary Obstetrics in the Clinic Baudelocque. In 1895 Hernandez Perez traveled to New York to actively participate in the preparation of the Guerra Necesaria (Necessary War) and in March 1896 he embarked with Calixto Garcia in the vessel Hawkins, which landed in Bermuda and two months later General Maximo Gomez granted Eusebio with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and fought together until the Government Council requested his services as Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic in Arms; however, after a short time Eusebio resigned from that position due to discrepancies with president Salvador Cisneros Betancourt and joined General Gomez and later Calixto Garcia's forces again. Them, he was offered the position of Chief of Military Sanity with the rank of Brigadier General, nevertheless, he did not accept the position due to his honesty. Eusebio Hernandez participated in combats such as: Loma de Hierro, Guaimaro, Las Tunas, Guisa and Saratoga. In 1896 he also refused to be representative of the Assembly of Yaya, for what he had been elected. The health of Brigadier General Hernandez Perez was gradually deteriorating so he traveled to New York in 1898 as his friend Major General Calixto Garcia had requested him, and there he found out about the end of the war and his election as representative of the Assembly of the Saint Cross of the South, but because of his rejection to the American invasion he did not get involved in such tasks. In 1899 returned to Cuba with the cadaver of General Calixto Garcia, as his son General Carlos Garcia Velez had requested him, and once there, he asked the interventionist government to make public its position regarding the independence of Cuba. By that time, Eusebio revalidated his studies in the University of La Habana and the Assembly of Representatives of the Cuban Revolution granted him the title of General of Sanity Brigade. Once the independence of Cuba was frustrated by the yankee invasion, he remained supporting the most progressive causes and fought very hard the annexationist tendencies. In La Habana, he tried to open a free clinic but it couldn't happen, and it was by that time when Rosalia and Eusebio constituted a Committee of Ladies so they could obtain some money for the clinic, workshop for making clothes for pregnant women, mothers and children, but the plan didn't work either. It was when Doctor Gonzalez Lanusa made the University Reform starting with the faculty. He named a commission of professors who were either from the own university or private physicians of great reputation who honored Eusebio offering to teach the class of obstetrics. Later, the Secretary of Instruction Enrique Jose Varona, analyzed and made a complete teaching method in which Eusebio got to be the obstetrics professor in his clinic PINARD, named after his great professor and friend. Hernandez Perez also trained two midwives with along with some nurses spent days and nights there, and he even used for a long time a narrow room with only 24 beds of the old hospital Reina Mercedes. Eusebio Hernandez even got to show solidarity with the Socialist State born in Russia. He was also one of the founders of the Democratic Union Party, and in 1911 he was a pre candidate of the Liberal Party to the Presidency of the Republic. Eusebio always showed solidarity with the worker class, defended the women emancipation, the right to have access to free education and health, the regulation of work hours, and more social aspects. Eusebio also participated with Mella in the foundation of the Popular University Jose Marti; in 1926 he was chosen as a member of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba and of the Society of Obstetrics of France, and in 1932 he rejected the presidency of the Conservative Party. His last political activity was the reception and vigil of Julio Antonio Mella's ashes on September 29, 1933, where in the guard of honor along with his fellow Juan Marinello faced off the repressive forces of the Gerardo Machado's dictatorship. Eusebio Hernandez died in La Habana on November 23, 1933 due to a pulmonary edema and was buried in the Necropolis de Colon.