What is the role played by latin american scientists in the international community?
Eye surgery is basically latin in its development. It is a technique very much influenced by Arruga, the Barraquers, Castroviejo, who not only revolutionised the technique because of their procedures, but also because of the introduction of irreplaeable instruments. I have personally experienced the way in which those professionals have influenced ophtalmic surgery in the US and Europe. You were the first latin american to present the Jackson Lecture. What memories do you keep of that moment? Ah! It made a most powerful impression on me. I was 39 years old and I was lecturing in the US. I was at the New York Ophtalmology Academy and someone handed me a letter from the president of the American Academy of Ophtalmology, Frank Newell. I read it, and I found out I had been chosen to deliver the Jackson Lecture in 1971. I kept looking at the letter, reading it and re reading it again and again. The president of the New York academy, Dr Theodore, kept looking at me, wondering what that was a
