Historian’s Corner
A few months ago I read on the Internet a note by Miguel Ángel Martínez, a person who seriously studies topics related to our past, in which he declared The raffle for General Saint-Martin’s “glass” or telescope was held in 1887 to defray the costs of the cholera epidemic that had ravaged the country since December 1886.
The specimen belongs to the architect’s collection Carlos Alberto Cotto Pellegrini (1894-1971), full member of the Sanmartinian Academy, second vice-president of the National Institute of Sanmartinian Studies.
The first cases of cholera occurred at the end of General Roca’s presidential term and at the beginning of President Juárez Selman’s term on October 12 of that year.
It all started with a ship anchored in Riachuelo, and its first focus was the community of Boca, as our colleague Cristina Segueso de López, who has studied the evil developments in Mendoza, “The media in Buenos Aires were disseminated incompletely and carefully to avoid panic, and likewise the cases were not accurately attributed to cholera, cholera or gastroenteritis,” Aragon said.
The capital was the least affected because, to some extent, the land that could be developed was covered with sanitation facilities such as running water and sewers. Inland, however, it reached great proportions, and a battalion took it to Rosario and used ships to transfer the evil to the coast.
In such unfortunate circumstances, the famous collector Manuel Ricardo Trelles decided to donate to his brother Rafael, who died in 1880, a piece of the palace belonging to him and General San Martín. “Glass” in honor of “its authenticity” General Miter can report “Mirror and Mancilla”.
The lottery went on sale on the first day of January 1887 under the direction of the Municipal Administration of the Capital City of Torcuato de Alvear; in view of the consistent spirit of solidarity of our people, a total of 20,000 pesos Numbers must have been snapped up quickly.
We don’t know who won the dress or where it ended up, and there’s certainly more in the newspapers of the time that deserves investigation. The National Historical Museum preserves one donated by General Bartolomé Mitre on November 22, 1890 and belonging to General José de San Martín.
“It is an optical instrument that allows us to see distant objects at close range, thus providing long-distance vision. It was then called Glasses. It consists of a series of glass lenses mounted on a structure consisting of embedded cylindrical sections. It is made of wood and bronze and has the initials (J. de S.) engraved on it. It houses articulated crystals in cylinders that fit together.“.
The story of Buenos Aires always surprises us and we will continue to investigate it.