Desde el ISET al InDRE. I. Instituto de Salubridad y Enfermedades Tropicales: génesis y primeros años, 1934-1940

Lázaro Cárdenas government vision, and the process to create the Sanitary and Tropical Diseases Institute, which is considered strategic for public health, were consistent with the actions that were carried out: the Department of Public Sanitary asked the most relevant scientist of those days, Eliseo Ramírez, to design and follow-up the Institute's project. A commission of the Higher Education and Scientific Research Council reviewed and approved the project and conferred this institution its nature of research center with social and humanistic vocation since its foundation. Sanitary and Tropical Diseases Institute became the first post-revolutionary health institution that was born with well-remunerated job positions to conduct full-time research in Mexico, offering clinical services, teaching and supporting disease prevention and control campaigns. It was with no doubt a milestone in Mexican public health and crystalized the expectations of several generations of physicians and health researchers about having a high-level institution. It is the most significant public health institution of the country, with a new phase as Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference. Without it, Mexican modern public health cannot be understood.