Santiago José Celis

Santiago José Celis was a Salvadoran physician born in 1782 in Ahuachapán into a Creole family. As a boy he moved to the Guatemalan capital for the best schooling then available and enrolled at the Tridentino School in 1794. He received his bachelor's degree in medicine from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala on 16 August 1800 and finished his master's degree in August 1802, partly on the strength of his essays and new ideas on treating gangrenous inflammations. As a doctor he promoted vaccination against smallpox in San Salvador. He sided with the movement for the independence of Central America from colonial rule and took part in the independence movement that peaked in San Salvador on 5 November 1811. After joining a further uprising on 24 January 1814 he was captured and jailed, and he died in prison on 16 April 1814 after being tortured.