One hundred years ago (II)

As I said in a former post, I did a small historical research about the origin of Salvadoran college of engineering. I discovered that two of the very first Salvadoran electrical engineers graduated from RPI, in New York. They were two brothers. Federico, the elder Mejía, started in 1912. His junior brother, Julio started a year later.

As I said, I emailed RPI trying to get information about these two alumni. Amy Rupert, an assistant archivist, from the Institute Archives and Special Collections in the Folsom Library (RPI), sent to me two short bios. Those biographies  were in something she called entry books. I think, that was a kind of Facebook.

I have spent a lot of time trying to decipher what they wrote about Julio Mejía.

First I would like to know who was in charge of writing the entry book, the college's president?  The very first sentence gives me a hint about the purpose of this work. They tried to portray each student: "When we intend to say in few words all about any particular human being it is necessary to mention only his essential characteristics. This fact can't be better illustrated than by Mejía." 

Then the author of the biography says things with a hint of irony: "His life is full of striking events. We can see him visiting hospitals although he is not sick; just because * * * *. Then he will undoubtedly, with the medicine he needs, take a stroll through parks so as to breathe the fresh pure air, having always with him what we are calling medicine."

Why did Julio like to visit hospitals if he was not sick? After all, in general, hospitals are not pleasant places to visit. Almost nobody can find entertainment in a Hospital, and not even at the beginning of the twenty century.

Julio Mejía the nurses chaser?

What was Julio's medicine? Can somebody take a stroll through parks with a medicine in hand? I think the answer is in the very last sentence, where the author wrote about Julio: "I mean those fair lasses from Troy [New York], and for them he partially neglects his studies."