Fernando Asuero Sáenz de Cenzano (29 May 1887 – 2 December 1942) was a Spanish footballer who played as a goalkeeper for Athletic Club,[1][2] and a doctor, creator of the controversial asueroterapia, a dubious method applied by means of small cauterizations in the trigeminal nerve to cure several diseases.

He quickly became known among the citizens due to his excellent personal treatment and his social commitment, which would lead him to act as a councilor in the city council of San Sebastián between 1923 and 1925.

[4] Around 1929, Asuero promoted a controversial method of curing various diseases through small cauterizations in the nasal mucosa (trigeminum), which made him a world celebrity at the time.

[3][4] Apparently, through the action of heat on the nerves of the nose, without any pain, he cured ailments of many kinds: asthma, epilepsy, venous ulcer, deafness, blindness and paralysis.

[4] He defended his method in an article called Ahora hablo yo, y en algunos folletos (English: Now I speak, and in some pamphlets), highlighting its effectiveness with a few appointments being enough, and sometimes just a few minutes rather than many sessions or long operations and painful processes.

[4] Cases soon came to light such as that of Benito Jovarri, an invalid for more than 20 years who, after going to Dr. Asuero, walked out on his own feet; the one from Bienvenido Sanz, who suffered from severe oral paralysis from which he was cured after the intervention; or that of the civil guard Alberto Sánchez, who recovered from his disability in the first session.

[4] After his stay in Buenos Aires, Manuel Colominas wrote the tango Operáte el trigémino, recorded by the Minotto di Cicco orchestra and with the voice of Antonio Buglione.

[9] The Cuban singer Miguel Matamoros composed the song El paralítico since, in his opinion, "in 1930 in Cuba nothing was talked about other than the ability of the doctor Fernando Asuero to cure paralysis".