This information was obtained from an Obstetrical Society of London 1896 document (I am trying to get a copy of the book so I can see if there is any other mention of Dr Domingo de Montbrun and his work) and was found on Google Books with a search string 'Domingo de Montbrun'. I owe Agustin Hernandez Lairet, a descendent of Jose Maria Montbrun Otero (a brother of Dr. Domingo de Montbrun, Knt) a debt of gratitude for locating this information. As we discover more information about the good doctor I will add the information in to this article so that this will become the framework if you will, for research into Dr. Domingo's life.

Dr. Domingo de Montbrun was descended from one of the generals of the first Napolean.  He was born on December 3rd, 1830, at the historical port city of Puerto Cabello, in Carabobo estado in north-central Venezuela.  In 1854 he graduated M.D. at the University of Caracas, and began practice at Barcelona, in Venezuela.  Dr. de Montbrun so distinguished himself during an epidemic of cholera in 1856 that he was made major of Barcelona, and Surgeon-General to the army.  For his services to the army he was given, in 1862, the title of "Brigade-General."  Political troubles shortly after obliged him to leave Venezuela and take refuge in Trinidad.  He had no qualification to practise in British territory, but he soon became so esteemed that an ordinance was passed by the Governor entitling him to practise.  He was Vice-Consul, or Consul, for Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil and Portugal, and recieved numerous decorations from the Governments of these countries for his services. 

In 1876 he became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.  In 1881 he again visited England, as one of the 3,181 delegates to the 7th International Medical Congress, arguably the greatest and most historic medical congress ever held assembling the most distinguished medical minds in the world, and took part in discussions on Battey's operation* and on post-partum haemorrhage, his remarks being sensible, clear, and to the point.  He was admitted a Fellow of this Society in 1892. 

His health began to fail in 1893, and he went for a change first to Margarita, and then to Caracas, where he died on January 28th, 1894.  The Venezuelan Government awarded him a public funeral, his body lying in the cathedral of Caracas until it could be removed to Trinidad.  He was buried beside his children in a beautiful chapel, which he himself had built.  The late Archbishop of Port-of-Spain said of him, "Dr. de Montbrun was one of those exceptional men who prefer to give than to recieve.

* In August 1872, Dr. Robert Battey originated and successfully performed what is known as ‘Battey's Operation’ for the removal of normal ovaries, with a view to effect the change of life in women, thereby remedying certain otherwise incurable maladies like menstrual madness, neurasthenia, nymphomania, masturbation and "all cases of insanity".  Battey’s Operation or ‘Oophorectomy’ was not as prevalent in Britain as it was in America.  Most gynaecologists objected to the operation because they believed that it induced not only sterility, but also the loss of sexual feelings and the assumption of masculine characteristics.  At a time of fears about the decline of the race, labour unrest and feminist agitation, the ‘unsexing’ of women was focused on as a threat to marriage and the sexual division of labour, the two pillars on which the stability of society and the supremacy of the British nation rested.  As the British Medical Journal argued in 1887, there was a widespread feeling that the ovaries should be respected because they were ‘the organs of sexual life, making a woman what she is, fitting for the duties of womanhood, including childbearing’.  Battey’s Operation, although supported by distinguished gynecologists and psychiatrists of the day, became one of the great medical scandals of the 19th century.

Sources

1. The Science of Woman: Gynaecology and Gender in England, 1800-1929 By Ornella Moscucci, P157 ‘The ‘Unsexing’ of women’

2. Appletons Encyclopedia

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Alan de Montbrun

ademontbrun@gmail.com