Curar, sanar y educar: Enfermedad y sociedad en México, siglos XIX y XX

Abstract

Curar, sanar y educar reflects the maturation of the history of medicine in Mexico. The 11 articles included in the collection originated in a seminar on the social and cultural history of health in Mexico, and a 2006 conference with similar themes. They cover much of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Most chapters focus on Mexico City, public health agencies, and the process of state formation. Claudia Agostoni deserves high praise for insuring a high degree of coherence among the articles, most of which no doubt show considerable refinement from their initial formats.The book is divided into three thematic sections. Agostoni introduces the collection with an overview of recent innovations in the social history of medicine of Latin America, locating the volume’s contributions within that historiography. Part 1 includes four chapters on education and public hygiene, beginning with early nineteenth-century efforts to instill hygienic conduct in schools (Anne Staples), education of the blind in Mexico City (Christian Jullian), rural health agencies and hygienic education in the early 1930s (María Rosa Gudiño C.), and sports therapy at an institute for the insane in postrevolutionary Mexico City (Cristina Sacristán). Part 2 treats “medical imaginations” visible in case studies of late nineteenth-century abortion policies (Fernanda Núñez B.), French influences upon attitudes toward prostitution (Rosalina Estrada Urroz), and post-revolutionary childhood nutrition programs (Carlos Viesca Treviño). Part 3 examines national and international roles in campaigns against yellow fever (Ana María Carri llo), hookworm (Anne-Emanuelle Birn), diphtheria and scarlet fever in Mexico City (Agostoni), and malaria (Marcos Cueto). Each chapter has its own bibliography; regrettably, the collection is not indexed.Reviews of collected essays necessarily offer more information on some chapters than others. This reflects the reader’s preferences, as well as the perceived originality of the contributions. The collection begins with a strong chapter by Staples on the intersections of hygienic goals pursued by various public actors and educational hygiene associated with disease in the first half of the nineteenth century. Miasmic and moral understandings focused attention upon exercise of student’s bodies and the physical environment of the school, with little attention to the actual health of students or issues of poverty and hygiene. Continuing the theme of physical education in a study of blind students in Mexico City, Jullian carefully contextualizes the study in the perceived relationships between blindness, ignorance, and poverty, conclusions that determined the programs of the National School for the Blind. The goal of turning students into “useful citizens” through skill development largely failed, as most left the school and returned either to the streets or to dependency upon their families. Authorities blamed these shortcomings not upon their methods, but upon the “moral shortcomings” of the blind, who would be condemned to the peripheries of Mexican society. Sacristán examines similar programs for patients at a Mexico City insane asylum, which sought to develop skills and social worth. She traces the development of gymnastic therapies to foment physical health and moral stability. Over time, the institute put the active bodies of the insane on display in public events, making a public spectacle of those suffering mental illnesses.The four chapters on campaigns against various diseases are particularly strong. The contributions by Birn and Cueto treat Rockefeller Foundation efforts to combat hookworm and malaria, topics recently addressed by the authors in book form. The works by Carrillo and Agostoni challenge the centrality of Rockefeller to Mexican public health. Carrillo refutes scholars who credit Rockefeller with initiating campaigns against yellow fever, stressing the insights of Carlos Finlay and Mexico’s participation in international public health efforts. Mexico modernized its public health institutions in the 1890s, enabling it to coordinate its internal campaigns with those of the international community. Mexico launched an aggressive campaign against yellow fever in 1903 using methods developed in Havana to control the disease in Vera Cruz, Yucatán, and in many other lowland commercial zones, leading to the near elimination of the disease by 1910, before Rockefeller arrived on the scene. Agostoni explores the preventative campaigns against diphtheria and scarlet fever in postrevolutionary Mexico City. Federal officials used newly developed preventative techniques in the capital city to inhibit the emergence of these deadly childhood diseases, using this campaign to craft structures and strategies to strengthen the newly created Department of Public Health. The aggressive campaign included the mobilization of school officials, public health agents, and women’s groups, and an intense propaganda blitz. Multifaceted public opposition to diagnostic testing, especially by parents, forced the government to abandon that portion of the project in favor of more public education.