Francisco Martínez Aguirre

Dr. Francisco Martínez Aguirre (Baba, Ecuador, January 6, 1850 – February 8th 1917) was an Ecuadorian physician, medical professor, statesman, journalist, publisher, editor, caricaturist, and poet. He received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in the United States in 1871, at the age of 21. During his time in the United States, he also became a Freemason. He held several high-level political positions in Ecuador’s government as well as high-level academic positions in Ecuadorian medical schools throughout his life. He worked as a professor at the Medical School of the Central University of Ecuador from 1878 until 1910. From 1898 and 1907 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Guayaquil. On November 7, 1885, he founded the satirical weekly “El Perico,” which called attention to issues of the time through poetry, political cartoons, and humor. The newspaper, whose motto was “Each bird cuts his own quill and proceeds,” quickly became popular, perhaps more so than any other newspaper had before. In 1886, for his role as the publisher/editor of “El Perico,” he was arrested and exiled to Peru. In his later years he became a close collaborator of President Eloy Alfaro. In the two critical years preceding President Eloy Alfaro’s murder (1910 and 1911) he was one of five ministers in Eloy Alfaro’s Cabinet, serving as Minister of Defense. After Eloy Alfaro’s murder, he went into voluntary exile in Chile from 1912-1915.

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