Roberto Reyes Barreiro - Medicine and Activism

Medicine and Activism

He practiced medicine in Yucatán following his graduation for a short period before his socialist views got him into trouble with the government, and he was expelled from the state. Moving first to Mexico City with relatives, then later to the port city of Veracruz, he met and married a young nurse, Edilberta Baquedano, and started a practice to treat the city's poorest residents. True to his heart, Reyes Barreiro preached the gospel of Left politics to his patients and to anyone who would listen. He spent many long hours making his rounds on horseback and, when possible, by carriage, often toting his doctor bag and several books on politics, poetry, science and medicine. During the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), Reyes Barreiro was often one of the only people allowed on the streets after dark during the curfew, to tend to his patients, revolutionaries, friends and foes alike.