Doctor, soldier, scientist administrator.

Hugo Roberts was born in Trinidad on the twentieth of July, 1868. He received his early education in Madrid but later came to Havana where he completed the studies for the Bachelor's degree in the Institute and, proceeding to the University, obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1891.

He was occupied in the practice of his profession and as Medical Advisor of the Compañía Transatlántica Española until the year 1895 when, on the outbreak of the War of Independence, he threw himself into the struggle and joined the forces of General Antonio Maceo under whom he served and who made him Surgeon at his Headquarters. When Generals Gómez and Maceo organized the column of invasion in the Eastern provinces to carry the war into the western part of the Island, Dr. Roberts was made Surgeon General of the invading forces, a difficult and dangerous post which put to the test at once his personal valor, his patriotism, his energy, and his quality as a man of science. In the course of duty he was severely wounded in the battle of San Gabriel de Lombillo; nevertheless he finished the campaign, gaining promotion from rank to rank solely by his personal merits and ended the war with the rank of Brigadier General.

In 1898 he was delegated from the Sixth Corps of the Army to the Assembly of Santa Cruz del Sur, and in 1901 he served as Alternate in the Constitutional Convention which drew up the fundamental code of the Republic.

During the first American Intervention Dr. Roberts was appointed Surgeon to the Havana Police force; later he was made first surgeon of the Port of Havana and on September 1, 1902, he was named Chief of the Quarantine service--a post which he still occupies

Along with Doctors Guiteras, Agramonte, Barnet, and López del Valle, Doctor Roberts was one of the most effective co-laborers in the work initiated under the American Intervention for the public health of Cuba, as he has been one of the ablest of those who have maintained the sanitary policy then adopted.

Dr. Roberts was Delegate of the Cuban Government to the Exposition in St Louis (1904) and to the Pan-American Health Conventions in Mexico (1907), Costa Rica (1909), and Santiago de Chile (1911 ),

He was also Acting President of the National Red Cross Society of Cuba; and at present is a Member of the National Board of Health; Member of Special Commission of Infectious Diseases and also Member of the Bureau of American Republics in Washington.

He is author of several scientific works on Medical and Sanitary matters and also inventor of an apparatus for generating and injecting hydrocyanic acid gas, which is employed to advantage by the Sanitary Department for the destruction of all kinds of vermin. This apparatus was awarded a Gold Medal in the International Exposition of San Francisco, California, in 1915, and was also awarded a prize by the Third National Medical Congress held in Havana in December, 1914.