The Legacy of Rev. Fr. Casto de Elera, OP (1852-1903): Foremost Dominican Scientist of the 19th Century

August 11, 2020


THE LEGACY OF REV. FR. CASTO DE ELERA, OP (1852-1903): FOREMOST DOMINICAN SCIENTIST OF THE 19TH CENTURY
Map of Spain highlighting Valladolid

INITIAL RELIGIOUS FORMATION
Rev. Fr. Casto de Elera, OP was a native of Mayorga de Campos in Valladolid, Spain. He was born on 1 September 1852. At age 15, he was vested with the Dominican habit on 12 September 1867, which commenced his Novitiate at the Convent-College of Santo Domingo in Ocaña, Spain. However, after ten months in the Novitiate, he was advised to go home following a sickness. Nevertheless, after two years, he recuperated and took the Dominican habit the second time on 18 September 1869. Persevering in his vocation, he made his simple profession of vows on 17 December 1870, and his solemn profession on 17 January 1874 in the same convent.

Convento de Santo Domingo de Guzmán (Ocaña)

ARRIVAL IN THE PHILIPPINES AND PRIESTLY ORDINATION
Fr. Elera was already an ordained deacon and a second-year Theology student upon his arrival in the Philippines, where he was ordained to the priesthood in San Carlos, Pangasinan on 12 March 1876 at age 24. He was given dispensation by the Church through a request of the Dominican Provincial because an ordained priest must at least be 25 years of age and it is required (until today) to have at least a six-month interval between the diaconate and the presbyterate. Furthermore, he fulfilled his academic studies while teaching Secondary Education at the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán in Manila. In 1878, he transferred to the Universidad de Santo Tomás (UST) in Intramuros.

Main Entrance of the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán (ca. 1880)

MISSION IN ABRA
On 29 October 1879, he was permitted to join an expedition in Abra as the chaplain of the troop that protected the clearing operation in the mountains of Northern Luzón in order to open the way to the Cagayan Valley. Consequently, he needed to return to Manila because of a serious illness.
Map of the Provinces of the Cordillera

PROFESSORIAL AND PROVINCIAL ASSIGNMENTS
In 1880, he was named professor of Philosophy and received a doctorate degree in the same year. Afterwards, he was honored with the Vice-Rectorship of the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán. The following year (1881), he returned to UST, where he was named professor of Natural History, a subject that he had been teaching for many years. He was also appointed as the secretary of the ‘Diffinitorium’ of the 1886 Provincial Chapter of the Dominican Province of the Holy Rosary, and then provincial secretary in 1887. He also served as the director of the ‘Venerable Orden Tercera’ (Dominican Laity) from 1890 to 1895.


Plaza Santo Tomás, 1910 (The Benavides Monument facing the University of Santo Tomás building in Intramuros, Manila)

HIS MONUMENTAL WORK
Natural History is Fr. de Elera’s line of specialization, through which he impressed both students and experts with his vast knowledge of the field. In the 19th century Philippines, it would not be easy to find an expert who was ahead or even close to the erudition of Fr. de Elera in the field of Natural History.

After the ‘Misa de Apertura’ (Opening Mass/ Mass of the Holy Spirit) of the academic year 1884-1885, Fr. de Elera delivered the traditional ‘Discurso de Apertura’ (Opening Discourse) on the “Catálogo Sistemático de toda Fauna de Filipinas” (Systematic Catalog of all Fauna of the Philippines), an excerpt from his three-volume monumental work in which he was awarded with a diploma of merit at the Philippine Regional Exhibition in Manila in 1895. In addition, he wrote an earlier work on “Contribución a la Fauna de Filipinas” (Contribution to the Fauna of the Philippines) in 1915 and a 500-page manuscript of sermons.

He began to organize the Natural History Museum of UST according to the modern scientific criteria, while enriching it with new acquisitions, sending hunters and researchers throughout the far-flung provinces in search of specimens, and maintaining correspondences and exchanges with the directors of foreign museums of similar field, until he finally organized the admirable and comprehensive collection of UST.

In 1870, the UST Museum of Arts and Sciences was founded by another professor of Natural History, Fr. Ramón Martinez Vigil, OP in Intramuros, Manila. With the efforts of Fr. de Elera, the collections particularly of the natural sciences, were scientifically classified and catalogued. He spent endless hours in such a tedious and painstaking endeavor that he satisfactorily fulfilled with pleasure. Such a monumental work would had required a fully dedicated team, but he carried it out by himself with great inspiration from God.

UST Museum at the Third Floor of the UST Main Building (2020)

RETURN TO SPAIN AND HIS CREATOR
As a consequence of his assiduous labors, his health significantly deteriorated to the point that it was necessary for him to be sent back to Spain in the hope of recuperation through a familiar and serene ambience of his mother country. Unfortunately, the medical attention that he received did not have the expected results, and he suddenly passed away in his hometown on 29 August 1903, where he was buried. He passed away three days before his 51st birthday, almost the same age when our Holy Father St. Dominic de Guzmán, who tremendously labored for the Church, received the glory of heaven. Fr. de Elera was both a priest and a scientist who was always attentive to his priestly obligations and scientific endeavors.
Antonio Luna poses with a microscope at the Institut Pasteur in Paris (ca. 1890).

DE ELERA AND LUNA
Furthermore, Fr. de Elera rendered spiritual assistance to all those whom he encountered in his life especially his students. Fr. de Elera was a professor of Antonio Luna when he was still a student in UST. Luna later earned his Doctorate in Pharmacy from Spain and took his post-doctoral studies in the Pasteur Institute, France. Prof. Regalado José has this to say about the exchange of letters between Fr. de Elera and Antonio Luna: “Fr. de Elera’s response to Antonio Luna’s letter is remarkable in many ways. The Dominican answered it the same day he received it. He addressed his former student in the formal third person (usted), and not in the familiar second person (tú), quite unlike the arrogant manner with which many of Rizal’s contemporaries associated with the friars. Fr. de Elera’s tone was conciliatory, not condemnatory. He also ended on a positive, upbeat exhortation.”

UST Museum (2018)

UST MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE TODAY
Before Second World War, the UST Museum of Arts and Sciences was transferred to its present site, at the UST Main Building in Sampaloc, Manila. In 1988, a large part of the plant collection composed of eight (8) herbarium cases of about 8,200 specimens were transferred to the Research Center for the Natural Sciences at the 4th floor, Clinical Division of the UST Hospital. Since then, the UST Herbarium is continuously being replenished with new specimens through the collections made by the UST Research Center for Natural and Applied Sciences (RCNAS) research team by both graduate and undergraduate students. With the completion of the Thomas Aquinas Research Complex in November 2001, the plant collections were moved to its new and modern location.

The UST Museum currently houses Fr. De Elera’s extensive assemblage estimated to be more than 10,000 specimens of various mineral, botany, and zoology collections. Most of the specimens in the collection have never been opened to any public exhibit since the 1800’s.


Poster for “The Spineless Collections of Fr. Casto de Elera, OP: Reliving the Past”

In November 2014, a collection of "spineless" specimens was unveiled at the UST Main Building Lobby to commemorate the contributions of Fr. Casto de Elera, OP to the field of natural science. The exhibit, entitled “The Spineless Collections of Fr. Casto de Elera, OP: Reliving the Past,” features preserved specimens like corals, crustaceans, worms, and mollusk shells. It was organized by the Graduate School, the UST Museum, and the College of Science, with Prof. Rey Donne Papa, a biology professor (now, the dean of the UST College of Science) as overall coordinator.

Fr. Casto de Elera OP Building

In 2020, Dean Rey Donne Papa endeavored to formally name an anonymous building used for the zoology classes as the “Fr. Casto de Elera OP Building” in honor of one of the foremost Dominican Scientist of the 1800s.


















Sources:
Actas del Capitulo Provincial de la Provincia Dominicana de la Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario, año 1906. 

Bantug, José, “Museo de Sto. Tomás como Centro de Cultura,” Hispanidad 1:9 (1940), pp. 34-36.

José, Regalado, “A Letter of Antonio Luna to his UST Professor,” The Antoninus Journal, no. 1, UST Graduate School, 2018.

Neira, Eladio, OP, Hilario Ocio, OP, and Gregorio Arnáiz, OP, Misioneros Dominicos en el Extremo Oriente 1836-1940 (Vol. 2), Manila: Orientalia Dominicana, 2000, pp. 180-181.


11 August 2020

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