Dr. Alberto Reyes Escamilla, MD FMCS, former Director of Department of Surgery, Head of Burn Center, General Hospital, Tijuana, Mexico, worked and published studies with Heparin Burn Consultant Dr. Saliba from nearby La Jolla CA USA, who introduced heparin treatment in burns into Tijuana Mexico. Dr. Reyes, accompanied by Dr. Saliba then disseminated it throughout much of Mexico. Saliba’s prediction that Dr. Reyes would be “the Father of Heparin Burn Therapy in Mexico” became a reality.

The Project was arranged through the initial efforts of Dr. Anita Figueredo MD, FACS, who contacted Catholic Nun, Mother Antonia (Brenner) and drove Dr. Saliba to Tijuana Mexico to meet this worthy of admiration “Angel of the Prison” fame. Mother Antonia, always smiling, arranged the first presentation by Saliba, accompanied by Figueredo, to the doctors and nurses in the General Hospital and Cruz Rojos Hospital in Tijuana. She actually conscripted Dr. Reyes, who regularly dedicated time to treat prisoners for her, to work with Dr. Saliba. And then, fascinating and hard to believe, like the substance of a dream, Mother Antonia assigned two of her Medical Assistance Nuns to the project. Sister Carman Delores and Sister Olivia daily meet Dr. Saliba near the US-Mexico Border and drove him in their station wagon, seated in the middle seats, across the Border to everywhere necessary within Tijuana; and in the Hospitals to assist him in the heparin treatment of the first dozen or more burned patients over a period of several months. The manner in which the Nuns performed was magical and heart-warming.

What an experience! Dedicated work by all, with good results – relieved pain, enhanced healing and usually no scars. While one Nun assisted Dr. Saliba and or Dr. Reyes, the other Nun was taking pictures and or often would be saying the Rosary at the window. The heparin treatment was pleasant and easy to administer. Medicines and procedures were reduced. No pain medicines. No water baths, few showers. No routine use of messy painful sulfa topical on burn creams. Little or no debridements. Few or no bandages and dressings. Burn patients who previously would be treated with surgery utilizing an anesthetic in the Operating Room were being medically healed using heparin instead, with better cosmetic and functional results – as the patients had smooth skin and no contractures as a rule. Patients were sent home from the hospital in fewer days. Costs were much reduced.

It was a dynamic happy time. Happy patients, pain-free, alert, and helping-in-their-care. Happy relatives relieved-of-stressful worry. Happy smiling nurses and ancillary therapists, freed of many previously troublesome onerous duties. Pleasant and helpful Hospital personnel. There was an awareness of the fact that we were not the makers or creators of the healing. The healing therapy was in the heparin medicine, a common human and animal body biochemical, and independent of us who were merely the deliverers of the heparin. We acknowledged that the healing therapy in heparin was somehow incorporated there by an Entity Beyond Human Comprehension and Understanding which humans variously label by many Divine Names, including Creator and God.
We were excitingly aware and delighted that we were witnessing a medical advance similar to important past ones. One was the discovery, production, and use of the antibiotic penicillin to eradicate streptococcal infections, so scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, rheumatic arthritis, rheumatic heart muscle and valve damage, and rheumatic kidney disease caused by the streptococcus bacteria that serious disabled and killed many persons were diminished, controlled, and largely eradicated. Another was the discovery, production, and distribution of polio vaccine worldwide to prevent poliomyelitis, that is rapidly being eradicated. Even more successful was the use of smallpox vaccine which has totally eliminated the infamous killer of untold millions of humans throughout history. Notable also is use of other vaccines to reduce other ills: measles, mumps, chickenpox, pneumonia, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough) yellow fever, cholera, and influenza. Use of digitales to strengthen heart beating in heart failure illness is another.

The first day, on our return in the station wagon to the United States from Mexico, the Border Guards surprisingly stopped the Nuns station wagon at the Border for the First Time in 11 years of multiple crossings each day. One guard looked at, but did not talk to Dr. Saliba. Then the guard opened the trunk and looked inside beneath the sliding trunk- space-concealing cover. He glanced briefly at the exterior only of Saliba’s sizeable white styroform box battered from travel to many countries that contained and concealed from view his research camera, related tools, heparin and bandages. Then, without saying a word to the Nuns or to Saliba, he motioned us to go through the border crossing. We laughed and joked often that the guards must have thought the box contained illegal drugs, probably narcotics, and they were not interested in us ‘small fish’ but that they were out to get the drug dealers and suppliers who they may have thought were using us to transport the drugs. The waits at the border were usually long. We told stores, jokes, sang songs in English and Spanish, bought a guitar from a vendor, laughed a lot, enjoyed and appreciated the entire one-of-kind, once-in-a-lifetime experience - with all those unforgettable magnificient individuals.

Day 1	Day 5	Day 11
Boiling water scalded infant. Heparin relived pain within minutes. Blood restored healing, and there were no scars or contractures.
Fireplace caught bedclothes on fire severely burning the back of this 5 year old child. Pain promptly relieved by heparin in blisters and on surface. Healed without scars or contractures.

“Heparin is the best first treatment for burns.” Dr. Alberto Reyes

Dr. Alberto Reyes MD, FMCS, and associated Attending Doctors and Residents: