Sótero del Río Gundián (29 March 1900 – 10 May 1969) was a Chilean physician and surgeon, academic, researcher, businessman, professional association leader, and politician. He served as a minister of State under the presidents Juan Esteban Montero, Juan Antonio Ríos, Gabriel González Videla (all of the Radical Party), and the independent Jorge Alessandri.

Biography Family and education He was born in the Chilean commune of Cauquenes on March 29, 1900, the third of four children of Rafael del Río del Pozo and Avelina Gundián del Río. He completed his primary and secondary education at the Liceo de Hombres de Cauquenes (today Liceo Antonio Varas), and then studied medicine at the University of Chile, graduating as a physician and surgeon in 1922,El Mercurio (Santiago), October 21, 1996, p. A2. with a thesis titled Diatermia. He worked at Hospital del Salvador in Santiago, Chile, where he had completed his internship. In 1924, he traveled to Europe to study, particularly in France, Austria and Germany.

After returning to Chile, he contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and entered a sanatorium in Switzerland in 1927, where he was both a patient and a physician.Las Últimas Noticias (Santiago), February 3, 1994, p. 11. He returned to Chile a second time to work at Hospital San José in the capital, specializing in phthisiology.

He married Louise Schäffer, with whom he had one daughter. During the presidency of Jorge Alessandri, Alessandri was unmarried; consequently, Schäffer assumed duties equivalent to those of the first lady from 1959 to 1964, while her spouse served as Minister of the Interior.

Professional career He practiced as a physician at the sanatorium El Peral and at Hospital Barros Luco Trudeau in Santiago, Chile.

He also served as a professor of social medicine at the University of Chile. He was a member of the Medical Society of Chile (serving as its director), and a member of the Social Assistance Society of Chile and the Chilean Society of Phthisiology, presiding over both. He was also a member of the Chilean Medical Association, serving as provincial councilor for Valparaíso and as its president from 1957.

Between 1934 and 1936, during the second government of President Arturo Alessandri, he served as Director General of Beneficence and Social Assistance, succeeding the physician Alejandro del Río, with whom—despite the surname—he had no family relationship.

He became a member of Freemasonry, being initiated into the "Justicia y Libertad" Lodge No. 5 in Santiago on October 23, 1923. After a long Masonic career, during which he served (from 1966) as head of the Department of Masonic Action, he was elected Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Chile on June 2, 1968, serving until 1969.

He also devoted himself to agriculture, operating the smallholding "Alsacia" on the road to Puente Alto. He was a member of the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura (SNA), the Association of Poultry Farmers, and the Club de La Unión.

Political career

Upon assuming as Vice President of the Republic, Pedro Opaso Letelier appointed him Minister of Social Welfare on July 26, 1931. He remained in office under the subsequent vice presidency of Radical Juan Esteban Montero, resigning on September 2 of that year, after the military action known as the Sublevación de la Escuadra ―«Mutiny of the Chilean Navy»–.

Two months later, on November 15, Juan Esteban Montero again assumed as Vice President and once more appointed him to head the Ministry of Social Welfare, remaining in that position through December 4, when Montero took office as President of the Republic. In his ministerial management he organized shelters and soup kitchens, due to the severe financial situation inherited from the first administration of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. With the overthrow of Montero by coup d'état on June 4, 1932, he was removed from office.El Mercurio (Santiago), July 22, 2001, p. D21.

Later, under the government of Radical President Juan Antonio Ríos, on June 7, 1943, he returned for a third time to head the health portfolio, then called the Ministry of Salubrity, Welfare and Social Assistance, serving until February 3, 1946. During his administration, the Sociedad Constructora de Establecimientos Hospitalarios was created (of which he would be president) as well as the General Directorate for the Protection of Childhood and Adolescence, and the Hospital Félix Bulnes was built. In December 1948, a fire occurred at the School of Medicine of the University of Chile, and through the Sociedad Constructora de Establecimientos Hospitalarios—which he chaired—activities were carried out to complete the construction of Hospital Universidad José Joaquín Aguirre.

In the final months of the government of Radical President Gabriel González Videla, on July 29, 1952, he was appointed for a second time as Minister of Salubrity, Welfare and Social Assistance, serving until the end of the administration on November 3 of that year.

Seven years later, under President Jorge Alessandri, on January 19, 1959, he was appointed Minister of the Interior after the resignation of Enrique Ortúzar, and in that role he faced the devastating 1960 Valdivia earthquake in the central-southern zone of the country. During his tenure he was substituted on several occasions: between April 28 and May 18, 1960, by the minister of foreign affairs Enrique Ortúzar; and between November 6 and 10 of that same year, again by Ortúzar, then Minister of Justice.

By Decree with Force of Law No. 25 of October 14, 1959, published in the Diario Oficial on October 29, the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare was created, and separately, the Ministry of Public Health; he assumed leadership of the latter health portfolio until August 26, 1961. Simultaneously, between June 30 and July 7 of that year, he served as acting substitute for the interim minister of foreign affairs, Enrique Ortúzar Escobar; between May 13 and 18, 1963, for the minister Carlos Martínez Sotomayor; and between February 29 and March 8, 1964, for Julio Philippi Izquierdo. In addition, on September 14 and 26, 1963, he again led the public health portfolio, replacing Benjamín Cid as interim minister.

In parallel, between December 7 and 24, 1962, he had to serve as Vice President of the Republic, due to a trip by Alessandri to the United States and Mexico. Consequently, his position at the Ministry of the Interior was filled by the acting minister of economy, development and reconstruction and acting minister of foreign affairs, Luis Escobar Cerda. He finally left his ministerial post with the end of the government on November 3, 1964.

Despite his closeness to the political world, he never joined any political party, though he was close to the Radical Party. He spent his final days in Houston, Texas, United States, undergoing treatment for an illness he did not overcome, dying on May 10, 1969, at age 69. His remains arrived in Chile on May 14, and the Chilean government declared an official day of mourning for the following day, when his funeral took place.

References

External links Biographical note on the website of the Grand Lodge of Chile.