Dr. Isaac González Martínez[note 1] (July 8, 1871 – April 20, 1954) was the first Puerto Rican urologist, and a pioneer in the fight against cancer throughout the island.
Dr. González Martínez conducted many investigations and experiments in parasitology, bilharzia, leprosy and typhoid fever.
Dr. González Martínez and Dr. Bailey K. Ashford were the founders of the first commission in Puerto Rico to study the causes of anemia.
[1] González Martínez was born in a coffee plantation in the town of Utuado in the central mountainous region of Puerto Rico.
[3] González Martínez was interested in parasitology, a new medical concept in the island, and worked with Dr. Bailey Ashford in the Anemia Commission.
He discovered that these parasitic worms, named bilharzias, were infecting his patients' intestines and damaging their livers.
The building of the Institute of Tropical Medicine is located at the University of Puerto Rico campus at Rio Piedras,[5] and Dr. Ashford was the first to describe and successfully treat North American hookworm in 1899.
After graduating he returned to Puerto Rico and was named director and consultant of the radiology department of the School of Tropical Medicine.
That same year he published a scientific article in the permanent cure and treatment of cervical Uterine cancer.