Jorge Mardones

Jorge Mardones Restat (29 June 1908 – 3 November 1998) was a Chilean politician who served as a minister.

He served as Minister of Health, Welfare and Social Assistance under President Gabriel González Videla from 1950 to 1952. In 1977, he received the Chilean National Prize for Sciences.

Early life and education

Diploma appointing Mardones as professor of pharmacology at the University of Chile, 7 January 1937. Mardones was born in 1908, the son of Francisco Mardones Otaíza and Berta Restat Cortés. His brother, Carlos Mardones Restat, served as Chilean chargé d'affaires to Italy from 1977 to 1980. He received his primary education at the Liceo Alemán de Santiago.

Mardones qualified as a physician at the University of Chile in 1930. In 1928, while still a student, he became an assistant lecturer in biochemistry at the university's Faculty of Education and was appointed a full professor four years later. In 1937, he became a member of the Medicines Commission of the Compulsory Insurance Fund. The following year, he began teaching at the Faculty of Medicine.

He married María Zelmira Acevedo Davenport, with whom he had six children: María Teresa, Carmen, Jorge, María Inés, Arturo and Ana María.

Public and academic career

During the presidency of Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Mardones served as secretary of the National Food Council from 1938 to 1942. From 1942, he served as secretary of the National Nutrition Council. In 1946, he headed the presidential campaign of his fellow party member Eduardo Cruz-Coke.

President Gabriel González Videla appointed Mardones Minister of Health, Welfare and Social Assistance, a position he held from 1950 to 1952. As minister, he promoted the establishment of the National Health Service (SNS) and advocated funding for young researchers.

Mardones developed an extensive research career, particularly in the study of alcoholism, pharmacology and nutrition. His research into alcohol preference examined the role of hereditary factors in susceptibility to alcohol consumption, anticipating later developments in behavioural genetics.

From 1966 to 1975, he served as president of the National Drug Formulary. He also played a prominent role in the establishment of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) and the Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission. He was a co-founder and the first director of the Ibero-American Association for the Study of Alcohol and Drug Problems (ALEPAD), and authored more than 150 scientific publications. He also chaired the Interministerial Commission for the Prevention of Alcoholism.

From 1976 to 1980, Mardones headed the Chilean Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Chile. His publications addressing public health and social policy included Los motivos de la reforma de la seguridad social de los obreros, published by Editorial Jurídica in 1954, and La alimentación de las poblaciones, published by Publicaciones Biológicas of the University of Chile in 1956.

In 1977, Mardones received the Chilean National Prize for Sciences for his research on alcoholism. In investigating the biological basis of alcohol preference in rats and humans, he developed selectively bred lines of alcohol-preferring and alcohol-avoiding rats. His findings provided experimental support for his hypothesis that susceptibility to alcoholism has a hereditary component that can be transmitted between generations.

Mardones died on 3 November 1998, at the age of 90.

Awards and honours

  • 1976: Andrés Bello Award
  • 1977: Chilean National Prize for Sciences
  • 1988: Juvenal Hernández Award
  • 1992: Jellinek Memorial Fund Award
  • 1995: Abraham Horwitz Award