Mexican Soil Research Articles

Advances in the study of soil erosion by water in Mexico published in Spanish

AbstractResearch on soil erosion by water (SEW) includes studies on different spatial and temporal scales. Nevertheless, in Mexico (as in many countries of the Latin American and the Caribbean Region), a lack of studies on SEW is constantly reported in high‐impact journals. We argue that this lack is mainly due to the language in which the majority of the scientific research about SEW in Mexico is published, which is Spanish. Therefore, the objective is to identify the main trends in SEW research in Mexico, through a review of peer‐reviewed studies published in Spanish. The review is centred on two sources of studies published in Spanish that are relevant to Mexican soil sciences communities: Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and Redalyc (Diamond Open Access scientific journal network non‐commercial global infrastructure owned by academia). As a result, we identified 37 relevant peer‐reviewed articles about SEW, and the principal article aim of these works is modelling and measuring SEW (45.9 and 29.7% of the total articles compiled, respectively). We observed that research on SEW in Mexico follows the same trends as global reports. For example, the most frequently implemented models are those in the Universal Soil Loss Equation and its variants. We observed no data‐sharing culture in most of the revised articles. Our results suggest that large‐scale studies on SEW are needed in Mexico to better understand its role in large‐scale earth system models. Therefore, we conclude that despite the scarce international visibility of Spanish‐written SEW research, multiple valuable studies have indeed been carried out and they provide relevant information for the development of baseline references towards enabling nationwide soil erosion monitoring programmes in Mexico.

From soil to tierrita: Contrasts between Mexican soil regulation and the perspectives, values, and practices of indigenous communities

From soil to <i>tierrita</i>: Contrasts between Mexican soil regulation and the perspectives, values, and practices of indigenous communities

South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War by Alice L. Baumgartner

Reviewed by: South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War by Alice L. Baumgartner Adam Malka South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War. By Alice L. Baumgartner. ( New York: Basic Books, 2020. Pp. xii, 365. $32.00, ISBN 978-1-5416-1778-0.) In her excellent new book, South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War, Alice L. Baumgartner argues that "enslaved people who escaped to Mexico and the antislavery laws that entitled them to freedom contributed to the outbreak of a major sectional controversy over the future of human bondage in the United States" (p. 7). In making this case, Baumgartner tells three stories. One charts the expansion of slavery across the U.S. South; another traces the road to abolition in nineteenth-century Mexico, and the anxiety that road engendered in U.S. slaveholders and politicians; still another reconstructs the lives of those who escaped bondage in the United States for freedom in Mexico. The resulting book is a rarity among students of antebellum U.S. politics: a narrative in which the actions of Mexican politicians, soldiers, and citizens figure prominently. With literary elegance and narrative pace, Baumgartner pulls English- and Spanish-language sources from both sides of the border, and she does what she can to recover the few fugitives who left archival traces in their southern gambits for liberty. Still, the "runaway slaves" of the subtitle remain more political abstraction than lived experience in the body of the text. Baumgartner's bigger success is the geographic reorientation of the U.S. sectional crisis. As the toxic marriage of slavery, cotton, and politics constricted antislavery hopes in the United States, slaveholders in Mexico—more outnumbered and isolated than their northern counterparts—lost ground during the 1820s and 1830s. She argues that the Texas Revolution "inaugurated a new era of antislavery activism in Mexico," if only because Mexican officials blamed the war on slaveholding [End Page 173] "Texians" and desired to undermine their independence movement from within (p. 111). Afterward, Mexico's Congress prohibited slavery across the nation, an act that eventually led to the U.S. annexation of Texas. Annexation in turn provoked the Mexican minister of relations to prohibit runaways from being returned to the United States. By midcentury, Mexico's Congress had formally made its territory a "mechanism of emancipation" by promising freedom to any slave who set foot on Mexican soil (p. 166). The road to emancipation in Mexico was uneven, and the realization of freedom for escaped slaves was not always what they imagined. The rise of an antislavery republic to the south mattered all the same. It mattered not just for the several thousand people who made it to Mexico but also for the shifting landscape of slavery in the south-central United States. Slaveholders in the region feared moving large numbers of slaves across the Colorado River. Proslavery officials in Washington, D.C., obsessed over Mexico's race-blind promise of freedom and citizenship. And U.S. northerners, including David Wilmot, began to oppose the reestablishment of slavery where it had already been abolished by positive law, as it had been in the newly ceded territories from Mexico. As Baumgartner's book makes clear, events like Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) did not unfold in a vacuum. Roger B. Taney penned the decision, and U.S. Americans received it, in a country that shared a border with another whose new constitution enshrined the "freedom principle," whose authorities sought to undermine slaveholders' property rights, and whose civilians took up arms to defend African Americans from re-enslavement (p. 214). "By almost every metric," explains Baumgartner, "the United States was stronger than Mexico," a fact that has led many people, then and now, to assume the U.S. government operated independently and in ignorance of its southern neighbor. "But Mexico's relative lack of power," she concludes, "did not mean that it was powerless" (p. 8). South to Freedom reveals that Mexico, in the realm of antislavery efforts at least, was able to exert power, too—and in the process affect the fates...

Determination of Radioactive Contaminant &amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;137&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;Cs (Fission Product) and Comparison with Natural &amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;40&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;K Present in Mexican Strawberries

Several previous papers have been published about radioactive contamination in Mexican soil, marine sediments and foodstuffs. Ever since, results have been according to expectation, mainly consisting of natural isotopes in small concentration. Continuous research leads with the surprising finding of fission product 137Cs (t1/2 = 30 years) in strawberries produced in different states, about 2000 km away from each other. Never before, such contaminant has been observed in foodstuffs, produced in this country. The aim of this work is to report the presence of 137Cs in Mexican strawberries and compare the activity of such contaminant with the natural radioactivity of 40K (t1/2 = 1.28 × 109 years), through gamma spectrometry. Eventually, the specific activity of 137Cs observed in samples FM4, FM5 and FBC is respectively 0.7, 0.8 and 0.3 Bq/kg. The limits established in CODEX-STAN-193-1995 for 137Cs are 1000 Bq/kg, so all samples meet the recommendation. It’s presence now in vegetables result with enough interest to be known and considered in the near future to measure the possible effect that radioactive contamination could reach after nearly 80 years from second world war, where no nuclear test has been performed, nuclear accident occurred, neither nuclear weapon has ever been used.

Draft Genome Sequence of Bacillus albus Strain IB84, Isolated from Mexican Soil.

Bacillus albus is a new species, but it lies on the borderline with Bacillus thuringiensis In this work, we report a strain previously identified as Bacillus thuringiensis IB84, which now, based on average nucleotide identity and rRNA 16S, gyrB, groEL, and xre gene sequences, must be identified as Bacillus albus.

A fast and robust method for the extraction and analysis of quaternary alkyl ammonium compounds from soil and sewage sludge.

Alkyltrimethylammonium compounds (ATMACs), dialkyldimethylammonium compounds (DADMACs) and benzylalkyldimethylethylammonium compounds (BACs) are quaternary alkylammonium compounds (QAAC), which are released into the environment in large quantities after their use in cleaning agents and disinfectants. Despite their potential role as selective agents promoting resistance against QAACs as well as antibiotics, there is a lack of data for QAACs in soil due to the lack of sensitive analytical methods. Therefore, we present a robust and fast method for the extraction and quantification of concentrations of these compounds in soil and sewage sludge. The method is based on ultrasonic extraction (USE) with a mixture of acetonitrile and HCl followed by a solid phase extraction (SPE) cleaning step and a subsequent quantification of concentrations with high performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) in multi mass reaction mode (MRM). The proposed method is suitable for the quantification of ATMACs (chain length C-8 to C-16), BACs (C-8 to C-18) and DADMACs (C-8 to C-16). The achieved limits of quantification (LOQ) range from 0.1 μg kg-1 to 2.1 μg kg-1. The recovery rates of spiked soil samples for non-deuterated homologues were between 47% and 57%. The analysis of sewage sludge samples and soil samples revealed that BAC-C12 was the most abundant QAAC with concentrations up to 38600 μg kg-1 in sewage sludge and up to 81 μg kg-1 in a Mexican soil that was irrigated with wastewater. Overall, the presented methods open perspectives for effectively studying fate and effects of QAACs in soils.

Promotor de la labranza de conservación y control de la erosión: Vida y obra del Dr. Benjamín Figueroa Sandoval

La Sociedad Mexicana de la Ciencia del Suelo, A.C. (SMCS), rinde un profundo reconocimiento post mortem al Dr. Benjamín Figueroa Sandoval, uno de sus más distinguidos y activos miembros. El Dr. Figueroa Sandoval nació el 30 de abril de 1949 en Guadalajara, Jalisco, México, y fallece el 21 de febrero de 2020 en Salinas de Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, México. Su quehacer científico comprendió las áreas de investigación: agricultura sostenible, labranza de conservación y física de suelos. Además de ser un excelente edafólogo, tuvo entre sus aficiones el deporte, siendo aficionado al futbol y jugador de basquetbol, además de la lectura y la música. El Dr. Figueroa Sandoval fungió como Director General del Colegio de Postgraduados durante dos periodos consecutivos, de 1999 a 2003 y de 2004 a 2007. Gran parte de su legado científico queda plasmado en los registros de la SMCS, AC.

Un receptor abierto comprometido con la conservación del suelo: Semblanza sobre el Dr. Mario Roberto Martínez Menez

Through this semblance, the Mexican Soil Science Society (MSSS), CA, offers a sincere post mortem tribute to Dr. Mario Roberto Martínez-Menez, one of its most distinguished members. Dr. Martínez-Menez was born on July 22, 1945 in Teloloapan, Guerrero, Mexico, and died on May 31, 2019 in Mexico City. Their scientific contributions are circumscribed basically within three Soil Science areas: Soil Conservation, Erosion Dynamics and Watershed Management. Besides being an excellent soil scientist, he was an outstanding football player. Dr. Martínez-Menez was one of the best open receivers of the Toros Salvajes de Chapingo team, who in 2017 entered the National Football Hall of Fame. As a testimony, his scientific legacy has been recorded in the annals of the MSSS, C.A.

A wide spectrum of antibacterial activity of secondary metabolites from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens ELI149

A highly potent secondary metabolites-producing Bacillus strain was isolated from Mexican soil (Puebla State), together with other fifty strains. The fifty-one strains were subjected for metabolites extraction and evaluated as antibacterial against several bacteria. The active metabolites of these strains were extracted using amberlite XAD16 absorbent resin. The antibacterial activity of crude extracts of all strains was performed by disk diffusion method against some pathogenic gram positive and gram-negative bacteria. Among all Bacillus strains tested, the most potent strain ELI149 (NRB) was selected for molecular characterization. The nucleotide sequence of the 16S rRNA gene (1.5 Kb) of this strain evidenced a 94% similarity with Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain IIHR-Ba-2, which showed the highest inhibition against the most bacteria probed even greater inhibition than the standard antibiotic. In conclusion, secondary metabolites extracted from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain are highly potent as antibiotic against the most bacteria probed. Identification of which metabolites extracted from amberlite are the responsible of the bacteria growth inhibition will be a challenge.

Assessing forest cover change in Mexico from annual MODIS VCF data (2000–2010)

ABSTRACTWe applied annual Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) product Vegetation Continuous Fields (VCF) data for the detection of forest cover change (FCC) in Mexico over the period 2000–2010. We excluded the pixels with uncertain information and applied a moving average and low-pass filter to smooth the multi-temporal data to reduce the fluctuations in the forest cover for each pixel. We applied a linear regression model and created two scenarios based on the coefficient of determination and slope to determine whether a pixel had changed its land cover over the study period. This model was able to label detected changes as deforestation, degradation, reforestation, and regrowth, based on the initial and final values of forest cover. The results showed that there has been more forest gain (reforestation and regrowth) than forest loss (deforestation and degradation) during the study period. We verified these results by comparing with the biomass data derived from the Mexican National Forest and Soil Inventory (Inventario Nacional Forestal y de Suelos, abbreviated to INFyS). Our model provides an efficient method to assess FCC at national level, which can contribute to the development of a reference level of greenhouse gas emission as necessary for the implementation of the international policy for reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).

Effects of 100 years wastewater irrigation on resistance genes, class 1 integrons and IncP-1 plasmids in Mexican soil.

Long-term irrigation with untreated wastewater can lead to an accumulation of antibiotic substances and antibiotic resistance genes in soil. However, little is known so far about effects of wastewater, applied for decades, on the abundance of IncP-1 plasmids and class 1 integrons which may contribute to the accumulation and spread of resistance genes in the environment, and their correlation with heavy metal concentrations. Therefore, a chronosequence of soils that were irrigated with wastewater from 0 to 100 years was sampled in the Mezquital Valley in Mexico in the dry season. The total community DNA was extracted and the absolute and relative abundance (relative to 16S rRNA genes) of antibiotic resistance genes (tet(W), tet(Q), aadA), class 1 integrons (intI1), quaternary ammonium compound resistance genes (qacE+qacEΔ1) and IncP-1 plasmids (korB) were quantified by real-time PCR. Except for intI1 and qacE+qacEΔ1 the abundances of selected genes were below the detection limit in non-irrigated soil. Confirming the results of a previous study, the absolute abundance of 16S rRNA genes in the samples increased significantly over time (linear regression model, p < 0.05) suggesting an increase in bacterial biomass due to repeated irrigation with wastewater. Correspondingly, all tested antibiotic resistance genes as well as intI1 and korB significantly increased in abundance over the period of 100 years of irrigation. In parallel, concentrations of the heavy metals Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni, and Cr significantly increased. However, no significant positive correlations were observed between the relative abundance of selected genes and years of irrigation, indicating no enrichment in the soil bacterial community due to repeated wastewater irrigation or due to a potential co-selection by increasing concentrations of heavy metals.

Evangelization is inculturation: A case study

The evangelization of Mexico is a good case study in inculturation. This article presents the challenges, obstacles, and unexpected events that led to the birth of the new church in Mexico. It traces the principal elements of the native religious culture, presents the efforts to proclaim the gospel through their symbolic world, and Our Lady of Guadalupe as the unexpected event that led to the implantation of the gospel in Mexican soil.

Impact of swapping soils on the endophytic bacterial communities of pre-domesticated, ancient and modern maize.

BackgroundEndophytes are microbes that live within plants such as maize (corn, Zea mays L.) without causing disease. It is generally assumed that most endophytes originate from soil. If this is true, then as humans collected, domesticated, bred and migrated maize globally from its native Mexico, they moved the species away from its native population of endophyte donors. The migration of maize persists today, as breeders collect wild and exotic seed (as sources of diverse alleles) from sites of high genetic diversity in Mexico for breeding programs on distant soils. When transported to new lands, it is unclear whether maize permits only selective colonization of microbes from the Mexican soils on which it co-evolved, tolerates shifts in soil-derived endophytes, or prevents colonization of soil-based microbes in favour of seed-transmitted microbes. To test these hypotheses, non-sterilized seeds of three types of maize (pre-domesticated-Mexican, ancient-Mexican, modern-temperate) were planted side-by-side on indigenous Mexican soil, Canadian temperate soil or sterilized sand. The impact of these soil swaps on founder bacterial endophyte communities was tested using 16S-rDNA profiling, culturing and microbial trait phenotyping.ResultsMultivariate analysis showed that bacterial 16S-rDNA TRFLP profiles from young, surface-sterilized maize plants were more similar when the same host genotype was grown on the different soils than when different maize genotypes were grown on the same soil. There appeared to be two reasons for this result. First, the largest fraction of bacterial 16S-signals from soil-grown plants was shared with parental seeds and/or plants grown on sterilized sand, suggesting significant inheritance of candidate endophytes. The in vitro activities of soil-derived candidate endophytes could be provided by bacteria that were isolated from sterile sand grown plants. Second, many non-inherited 16S-signals from sibling plants grown on geographically-distant soils were shared with one another, suggesting maize can select microbes with similar TRFLP peak sizes from diverse soils. Wild, pre-domesticated maize did not possess more unique 16S-signals when grown on its native Mexican soil than on Canadian soil, pointing against long-term co-evolutionary selection. The modern hybrid did not reject more soil-derived 16S-signals than did ancestral maize, pointing against such rejection as a mechanism that contributes to yield stability across environments. A minor fraction of 16S-signals was uniquely associated with any one soil.ConclusionWithin the limits of TRFLP profiling, the candidate bacterial endophyte populations of pre-domesticated, ancient and modern maize are partially buffered against the effects of geographic migration --- from a Mexican soil associated with ancestral maize, to a Canadian soil associated with modern hybrid agriculture. These results have implications for understanding the effects of domestication, migration, ex situ seed conservation and modern breeding, on the microbiome of one of the world’s most important food crops.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-014-0233-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Release of Pharmaceuticals under Reducing Conditions in a Wastewater-Irrigated Mexican Soil

Wastewater irrigation is often performed by flood irrigation, leading to changes in redox potential (Eh) of irrigated soils. In addition to soil organic matter, Fe-(hydr)oxides are important sorbents for pollutants, and biotransformation of pollutants can be accelerated under reducing conditions. Here, the influence of reducing conditions on the release of sorbed pharmaceuticals from soil and their potential accelerated dissipation was investigated in a microcosm study. Samples of a soil from the Mezquital Valley (Mexico) irrigated for 85 yr with untreated wastewater were incubated under oxidizing (Eh of 500 ± 20 mV), weakly reducing (Eh of 100 ± 20 mV), and moderately reducing (Eh of -100 ± 20 mV) soil conditions for 30 to 31 d. The concentrations of nine pharmaceuticals (bezafibrate, carbamazepine, ciprofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim, enrofloxacin, clarithromycin, diclofenac, and naproxen) were extracted via solid-phase extraction from soil slurries and analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Low Eh did not lead to a release of formerly sorbed pharmaceuticals from the wastewater irrigated soil. High pH values (>8) of the examined soil resulting from denitrification under reducing conditions prevented the dissolution of Fe-(hydr)oxides and, hence, the potential release of pharmaceuticals. A trend of decreasing concentrations of sulfamethoxazole and bezafibrate with time under moderately reducing conditions supports previous findings of a transformation of these compounds under anaerobic conditions.

Microbial treatment of sulfur-contaminated industrial wastes

The present study evaluated the microbial removal of sulfur from a solid industrial waste in liquid culture under laboratory conditions. The study involved the use of two bacteria Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans ATCC 53987 and Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans AZCT-M125-5 isolated from a Mexican soil. Experimentation for industrial waste biotreatment was done in liquid culture using 125-mL Erlenmeyer flasks containing 30 mL Starkey modified culture medium and incubated at 30°C during 7 days. The industrial waste was added at different pulp densities (8.25–100% w/v) corresponding to different sulfur contents from 0.7 to 8.63% (w/w). Sulfur-oxidizing activity of the strain AZCT-M125-5 produced 281 and 262 mg/g of sulfate and a sulfur removal of 60% and 45.7% when the pulp density was set at 8.25 and 16.5% (w/v), respectively. In comparison, the strain A. ferrooxidans ATCC 53987 showed a lower sulfur-oxidizing activity with a sulfate production of 25.6 and 12.7 mg/g and a sulfur removal of 6% and 2.5% at the same pulp densities, respectively. Microbial growth was limited by pulp densities higher than 25% (w/v) of industrial waste with minimal sulfur-oxidizing activity and sulfur removal. The rate of sulfur removal for Acidithiobacillus thioxidans AZCT-M125-5 and Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans ATCC 53987 was 0.185 and 0.0159 mg S g−1 h−1 with a pulp density of 16.5% (w/v), respectively. This study demonstrated that Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans AZCT-M125-5 possesses a high sulfur-oxidizing activity, even at high sulfur concentration, which allows the treatment of hazardous materials.

Interpolation of Mexican soil properties at a scale of 1:1,000,000

México maintains several databases with biotic or abiotic information that enable large scale-studies (for example, at a resolution of 1km2); unfortunately, there is no information at this resolution for soil properties. The goal of this paper was to generate a set of soil variables to address this absence. We evaluated 4400 soil samples taken on Mexican territory. The following nine soil properties were evaluated for each sample: Ca, K, Mg, Na, organic C, organic matter, electrical conductivity, sodium absorption ratio, and pH. With the use of geostatistical methods, a layer was generated for each soil property after six different semivariance models were evaluated. The kriging model (simple, ordinary, or universal) was selected as the best semivariance method with a 10-fold cross-validation approach. Exponential, pentaspherical, and spherical models were selected with ordinary and universal kriging methods to spatially predict the soil properties. Five classes for each soil map were generated. The nine soil properties were classified primarily as slightly low or medium according to their distribution throughout Mexican territory.

Microbiological and biochemical properties of an agricultural Mexican soil amended with sewage sludge

The application of sewage sludge is a concern because it may affect the quality of organic matter and microbiological and biochemical soil properties. The effects of surface application of sewage sludge to an agricultural soil (at 18 and 36 t ha-1 dry basis) were assessed in one maize (Zea mays L.) growing season. The study evaluated microbial biomass, basal respiration and selected enzymatic activities (catalase, urease, acid and alkaline phosphatase, and β-glucosidase) 230 days after sewage sludge application and infrared spectroscopy was used to assess the quality of dissolved organic matter and humic acids. Sewage sludge applications increased the band intensity assigned to polysaccharides, carboxylic acids, amides and lignin groups in the soil. The organic matter from the sewage sludge had a significant influence on the soil microbial biomass; nevertheless, at the end of the experiment the equilibrium of the soil microbial biomass (defined as microbial metabolic quotient, qCO2) was recovered. Soil urease, acid and alkaline phosphatase activity were strongly influenced by sewage sludge applications.

The Death of Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky was one of the founders of the Soviet Union and an obvious candidate to replace Lenin after his death. Unfortunately for him, it was Joseph Stalin who came to power, and Trotsky went into a long forced exile that eventually took him to Mexico, where he found asylum. On August 20, 1940, a Stalinist agent wounded Trotsky in the head with an ice axe in his house in Coyoacán, Mexico. Just a few hours later, Mexican neurosurgeons operated on him at the Cruz Verde Hospital in Mexico City. The axe had broken Trotsky's parietal bone and, after tearing the meninges, had damaged the encephalon. Despite the care provided by physicians and nurses, Trotsky passed away 25 hours after he was attacked, a victim of bleeding and shock. This article presents a review of Trotsky's last day, with special emphasis on the doctors who performed the surgery and who took care of the Russian revolutionary in his final moments. The results of Trotsky's autopsy are also discussed. The assassination of Leon Trotsky is one of the most dramatic events of the first half of the 20th century to have taken place on Mexican soil, and those final hours are an important moment in the history of Mexican neurosurgery and in the history of the world.

Mexico’s Superior Health Council and the American Public Health Association: The Transnational Archive of Porfirian Public Health, 1887–1910

Abstract In the late nineteenth century, Mexico’s Superior Health Council devised a consistent and assertive international strategy around alignment with international scientific standards, the control of disease certification on Mexican soil by Mexican experts, transparent disease reporting, internationally demonstrated competence in campaigns against tropical disease, and participation in multilateral health agreements. The council came to command a central role in the regime of Porfirio Díaz (1877–1911), mainly because this international strategy enabled a successful defense of Mexican sovereignty. In the arena of public health, the council, led by Eduardo Licéaga, came close to realizing the Científicos’ dream of Mexican development “without U.S. investment.” This was largely because the council obtained independent access to European ideas and technologies prior to its engagement with the United States, which began in 1890 when the first Mexican delegation attended the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Through a persistent and creative diplomatic campaign, taking advantage of relationships cultivated through the APHA, Porfirio Díaz’s sanitary advisors persuaded many of their American counterparts that Mexican experts could be trusted partners in defending the health of the western hemisphere. The article describes the Atlantic world of Mexican medicine in the nineteenth century, the significance of public health within a context shaped by rising U.S. imperialism, the key role played by Licéaga, and Mexico’s participation in the APHA.

Radical Mexico

The encounter of the Mexican and Bolshevik Revolutions on Mexican soil took place when the Mexican Revolution was still considered a viable project, however unrealized. The Bolshevik emissaries to Mexico, who arrived in 1919 and again in 1921, misunderstood Mexico on two counts. They disregarded the prerevolutionary radicalism that had developed in the workplace under the influence of the Industrial Workers of the World, and they dismissed the revolution as simply bourgeois. Both misreadings led them into blind alleys. Attempting to radicalize an already radical movement, they antagonized the anarcho-syndicalists. At the same time, the fact that in Soviet Russia anarchists were victimized by the new regime diminished the stature of that country in Mexico and made the anarchists hostile to communism.