Rizal as a Scientist

Rizals most significant contribution in the scientific world was his discovery of three species

Draco Rizali which is a flying dragon.

Apogonia Rizali is a small beetle.

Rhacophorus Rizali is a rare frog which he sent to museums in Europe, particularly in Dressed
Museum.

Rizal was drawn to the sciences because of its immutable laws, consistency, and predictive
characteristic unlike the caprices and arbitrariness of a government of flawed individuals.

His study of ophthalmologic medicine had been thorough. His mother, who lost her eyesight in
1887, encouraged him to take advanced training in the field. Thus, even after finishing his
medical degree at the University of Madrid in 1885, he traveled extensively throughout Europe
and trained under the leading opthalmologists of his time.

He visited Paris in 1885. There he apprenticed under Dr. Louis de Wecker, a famous eye
surgeon who, as Rizal wrote to his parents in 1886, can set in position crossed eyes in two
minutes. sciences 2, Rizal successfully removed the cataract in his mother's left eye in Hong
Kong. His patients grew in number that he had to put up small hospital houses around his
property. Many of them came from as far as Iloilo, Cebu, Manila, and Hong Kong.

As a respected man of science, Rizal wrote his Austrian friend and mentor, Prof. Ferdinand
Blumetritt, the following words in 1980: I have a big library; I shall have a house built on a hill.
Then I shall dedicate myself to the sciences

While in exile in Dapitan, he gave full vent to his scientific expertise. Rizal scholars agreed that
what he did in his years in exile can be considered practical expressions of integrated
development programs in agriculture, ecology, and public health.

To wit, he organized Dapitan's first association of farmers primarily to improve their farm
produce and help them find better markets. At once instance, he personally sold abaca fiber in
Manila incognito in order to find out and study its pricing system.

Also while in exile, he re-established connection with his scientist-friends.

He was a regular contributor of specimens of reptiles, mammals, birds, fish, insects,

crustaceans and other invertebrates to the Dresden Museum. For this, he was recognized as a
zoologist, leading to the naming of a flying lizard, a frog and a beetle after him. He also sent
shells to Dr. A. B. Meyer, Director of the Royal Saxony Ethnographical Institute, in exchange for
much-needed books.

Furthermore, it is well-established that Rizal was a respected member of the Anthropological

and Ethnological Society of Berlin and the Geographic Society of Berlin. The membership in
science organizations also provided the line of exchange of information that supported Dr.
Rizal's medical practice and the technological need of his varied projects.

Not many people also know to this very day that the Philippine snail, which carries the parasite
that causes schistosomiasis, is known as Oncomelania cuadrasi. This was named after a
certain Mr. Cuadrasi, a renowned naturalist based in Manila, to whom Rizal sent his specimen
of insects and animals for identification.
Surveyor and Farmer