Revisión histórica sobre el uso en heridas del emplasto confortativo de vigo

Resumen

Objective: To make known the origin, the elaboration and therapeutic indication of the socalled “Vigo’s comfortive emplastrum”. Method: A hermeneutic descriptive study of historical and documentary revision. Critical reading of manuals and medical treatises, pharmacopeias and other scientific texts from the 17th to the 19th century. Exposition of results in narrative form. Results: Juan de Vigo was a Genovese surgeon of the late sixteenth century, who experimented with different ointments and emplastrums, among which the mercurial and one based on minium (red lead powder) combined with turpentine (pine resin ); very popular and effective because of its rubefacient, astringent, emollient and resolutive action. It was officially known in the Spanish pharmacopeia as “comfortive emplastrum (of Vigo)”. Conclusions: Vigo’s comfortive emplastrum appears in all editions of the Spanish pharmacopeia as the first choice treatment to calm osseo-articular diseases and various pustular, atonic and recalcitrant ulcers. Its elaboration served as a basis to create more than 20 types of emplastrums. It would no longer be used in the middle of the 20th century when it was prohibited in Spain to use drugs combined with lead.