MEDICAL luminaries have appeared in the local scene, giving credit to their profession and to their country. Looming large over them is Dr. Proceso Gabriel, whose place in Philippine medical history is secured by his significant contributions to public health and to medical literature, by his creative innovations in medical education, and by his dedicated work in his clinical laboratory.

Less known was his philantrophy which made possible the training of talented, promising, but impoverished medical students, who eventually made names for themselves in their chosen profession. As if all this were not enough, Dr.Gabriel is also credited with improvising a sterilizer for curing tobacco, which is still in use by a cigar factory.

But it is as medical doctor that Dr. Gabriel made his greatest impact on Philippine life. At the turn of the century. Dr. Gabriel took a lead in the eradication of cholera; dysentery and typhoid epidemics, which decimated large portions of the population. His work on beriberi, the dreaded disease that took a heavy toll on the young, greatly helped reduce infant mortality while his work in his clinical laboratory, the very first to be established in the Philippines resulted in his extensive writings on the bacteriology of leprosy and tuberculosis.

Set against the backdrop of the times, such achievement, any way one looks at it, was outstanding; indeed. The University of the Santo Tomas Faculty of Medicine, established barely twenty-five years earlier in 1871, helped mould the doctor that Gabriel was to become. The uncertainty of the times, caused by factors which were to lead to the establishment of the very first republic in Asia, did not deter the determined young man to pursue his medical career.

By March 1898, or two years after the momentous cry of Pugad-lawin, which signaled the eventual breaking of the umbilical cord which tied the colony to the motor country. Gabriel had finished his second year of the medical course. Earlier, in 1895 he had obtained the Bachelor of Arts degree from the Ateneo de Manila, at great sacrifice on his part. For he came from a family of limited means, having been born the second of five children to Juan Gabriel, a poor leather dealer, and Juana Bautista on July 2, 1887 in Santa Cruz, Manila.

Of his professors at Santo Tomas, he fondily remembers Dr. Rogelio Aycart, upon whose invitation he used to accompany in his daily rounds of the Military Hospital. By that time, the Spanish-American War had erupted and an emergency hospital was established in the residence of Dr. Mariano Limjap at the foot of the Ayala Bridge and in the adjacent storehouse, the first floor was used for the wounded officers, where an operating room was fitted up, while in the adjacent storeroom, the sailors who were wounded in the sea fight (i.e. during the mock battle of manila between the fleet of Admiral Dewey and that of Admiral Montojo on May 1, 1898) were taken care of.

The treatment was simple. As Dr. Gabriel was to recall later on:

The treatment then in use was the antiseptic and not the septic method. To sterilize the instruments before the operation they were placed in a 100% carbolic solution for about half an hour. At that time the use of rubber gloves was unknown.

Dr. Gabriel went on to say that for the disinfection of the operator’s hand, a 1:1000 solution of corrosive sublimate was used. For the routine treatment of wound’s, the following procedure was employed. In case of recent wounds 1) clean the wound with corrosive sublimate solution of a 2% carbolic acid solution; 2) cover the wound with a gauze; and 3) dust with iodoform. Sometime the iodoform gauze was used for drainage.

It was also in this same emergency hospital that Dr. Gabriel saw, for the first time, all kinds of wounds produced by sharpnels, .. form the very slight to the very severe which necessitated in many cases the amputation of the extremeties affected . His frequent observation of tetanus cases among the wounded made him realize why tetanus occurred so frequently.

Towards the end of May of the same year, Dr. Aycart appointed Dr. Gabriel and another fifth year medical student to look for a site in Pasig where the Emergency Hospital could be transferred. The plan was, however, abandoned due to the outbreak of the revolution and the capture of the town by the Filipino revolutionists.

The Emergency Hospital was later transferred to the Conference Hall (Salon de Actos) of the San Juan de Letran College. It was in this building, Dr. Gabriel recounted , "that I saw an extraordinary feat, the [operation of the] region of upper third of the humerus with good results following a comminuted facture. It was also here that he observed several cases and different kinds of wounds and a gangrene of the extremeties.

Meanwhile, the Philippine-Spanish war raged on. Nevertheless, in the thick of war Aguinaldo proclaimed Philippine Independencde on June 12, 1898 in Kawit, Cavite. A year later, despite reverses on the side of Filipinos, Aguinaldo proclaimed the Philippine republic at Malolos in 1899. Subsequently, the revoluionists established the Univesidad Literaria de Filipinas in Malolos in March 1898, which offered courses in las, pharmacy, surgery and medicine.

In spite of the uncertainty of the times. Gabriel was determined to continue with his medical studies. He left for Malolos in December 1898 and matriculated in the Universidad Literaria de Filipinas" as third year student, with Dr. T. H. Pardo de Tavera as his major professor. Gabriel was to recall later that Dr. Pardo de Tavera" gave hald a dozen lectures on Materia Medica and Therapeutics in his house on Calle Raon.

In march 1899, upon the recommendation of Pardo de Tavera Gabriel worked as clerk in the Bureau of Health which was then located in the Provost Office.

Later on, when American rule was more or less firmly established, Gabriel was appointed as a "practicante" (i.e. laboratory aide) in the then newly-established municipal laboratory by the Americans which was under the directorship of Dr. William Calvert. It was in this laboratory that Gabriel got acquainted for the first time with laboratory techniques which contributed so much to his professional career. He, however, resigned his position on August 1, 1901 to continue with his medical studies.

He graduated as a Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Santo Tomas on January 14, 1903. A few days later he took the medical board examination and in that same year was given a certificate by the board, the very first to be issued by that body. He was employed as municipal physician by the Bureau of Health on August 12, 1903, also serving as municipal health officer in the Districts of Meisic (Binondo) and Tondo under the supervision of Dr. Luis Abella. As health officer stationed in Tondo, his eldest son Antonio was to relate later, Dr. Gabriel would order the disposal of spoiled fish and shrimps in the market, by returning to the vendors the capital that they lost. He thus won the respect and cooperation of the vendors, which enabled Dr. Gabriel to ban effectively the sale of spoiled foods in the market, which was his intention in the first place.

Dr. Gabriel married the former Carmen Borja, the eldest daughter of a well-to-do merchant, on November 26, 1905. Out of this union were born five children, all prominent figures in their chosen professions: Dr. Antonio Gabriel, head of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Microbiology and Parasitology and chief of the Section of Legal Medicine and History of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Surgery. University of Santo Tomas; Sister Maria Carmencita, Maryknoll College, Baguio City; Dr. Gregorio Gabriel, late assistant dean and chief of the section of Anatomy of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. University of Santo Tomas; Dr. Pedro Gabriel, chief chemist of YCO Paints, Elizalde and Company, and prominent professor of philosophy at the University of Santo Tomas; and Angel Gabriel, assistant vice-president of F.G. U. Insurance group.

While in government service, Dr. Gabriel devoted part of his time to teaching. In 1907 he was appointed assistant professor of Histology and later of Preventive Medicine Microbiology and Parasitology. He also served as head of the later department until his appointment as assistant dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Santo Tomas. He was partly responsible for the modernization of the medical curriculum and for the admission of women students in the Faculty of Medicine at Santo Tomas. His students in the Faculty of Medicine at Santo Tomas. His students in the Faculty of Medicine at Santo Tomas. His students especially the poor, loved and venerated him. As assistant dean of the college, he aided impoverished students by paying in part or in full their matriculation fees; thus, many young men became physicians through his generosity.

He served as member of the committee for the study of infant mortality. This committee was created by Act No. 2116 enacted on February 1, 1912, for the purpose of studying the causes of high infant mortality in the Philippines and o submit the recommendations necessary to remedy the condition. It was originally constituted by Dr. W.W. Musgrave, as chairman, and Drs. Proceso Gabriel and Luis Guerrero as members. On February 11, 1913, Act No. 2246 was approved extending the terms of the committee members and at the same time increasing the number of its membership to five. Accordingly, Drs. Jose Albert and Joaquin Quintos were appointed as additional members. The committee worked for about two years and submitted an extensive report which was published in 1914. The efforts of this committee contributed to the use of rice bran in the form of cakes (calamay), which was give to patients who were deficient in vitamin B, as a remedy for beri-beri.

Dr. Gabriel was also a member of the committees on typhoid, on leprosy and tuberculosis. Many of the recommendations of these committee, needless to state, were carried out. And while simultaneously serving as municipal health officer of Manila. Dr. Gabriel was also a member of the Council of Hygiene under the chairmanship of Governor Leonard Wood, and of the parole board for the release of negative lepers.

In spite of his busy schedule, as physician and member of different medical committees and as medical educator, Dr. Gabriel still found the time to author scientific literature written through the span of almost a quarter of a century.

As professor of medicine, he wrote Manual de Laboratorio Clinico, the first textbook on this specialty in the Philippines which was published in 1915. And for the benefit of pupils in the intermediate grades he published in 1923 Simple Manual of Hygiene and Sanitation. This book was published as stated in the foreword for the "purpose of imparting rudimentary knowledge of hygiene and sanitation to the children of today who will be the men of tomorrow. It is but an expression of our desire to contribute something to the dissemination of knowledge of hygiene and sanitation and to help in the proper formation of sanitary habits of our people".

Manual of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine (1927) is a second revised edition of Gabriel’s manual de Medicina Preventiva y Sanaticion, edited earlier in 1922 and had been in use for many years as textbook in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery in the University of the Santo Tomas.

In 1909, Dr. Gabriel opened a private bacteriological laboratory on 731 Calero Street, Manila, the first to be established by a Filipino. He manufactured an autogeneous vaccine, the first biologic product produced in the Philippines. Destroyed during the liberation of Manila in 1945, this laboratory was rebuilt under the direction of his son Antonio and was relocated in 1053 Oroquita St. after the war.

A private physician to the El Oriente Cigar Factory sine 1919, he was attending physician from 1924 until his death in the Flor de la Isabela Tobacco Co. It was during this period that he displayed still another facet of his creative ability when he improvised a sterilizer for curing tobacco, a device which is still used by the Tabacalera Cigar Factory.

One of the highlights of his career took place in 1909 when he won a prize during the Golden Jubilee celebration of the Ateneo de Manila for his work on "Parasitos Intestinales de Filipinas y su Influencia en la Salud Privada y Publica." Divided into three principal parts, this monograph discusses the concise and detailed zoological description, habitation, evolution of intestinal parasite, symptoms and treatment of diseases that they cause; their influence on public health: and finally, medical practices that should be adopted to diminish the enormous proportion of parasitic infections among the lower strata of society, particularly among farmers. In this work, Dr. Gabriel suggested the proper disposal of wastes and the use of footwear as measures preventing the rapid multiplication of parasites.

Dr. Gabriel was also the recipient of other honors and was a member of various scientific and medical societies among which may be mentioned the Colegio Medical-Farmaceutico de Filipinas; the Philippine Islands Medical Association; the National Research Council of the Philippines and of the Philippine Auxiliary Committee on the Revision of the United States Pharmacopedia.

Dr. Gabriel was also a prominent member of socio-religious societies like the Caballeros de Santa Cruz, Orden Tercera de Santo Domingo, Archicofradia del Santo Sacramento de Santa Cruz, Accion Catolico de Santa Cruz and the Congregacion Mariana.

A heart failure on November 4, 1935 wrote finis to a life fully lived by a man who contributed immensely to the advancement of medical science in the Philippines, who labored ceaselessly so that others may profit by his experiences and his scientific know-how. Dr. Gabriels’ untiring and selfless dedication to his chosen profession will always serve as a lasting inspiration to all those who will follow in his footsteps.