Health in the Highlands: Indigenous Healing and Scientific Medicine in Guatemala and EcuadorPopulated by curanderos, midwives, bonesetters, witches, doctors, nurses, and the indigenous people they served, this nuanced history demonstrates how cultural and political history, misogyny, racism, and racialization influence public health. In the first half of the twentieth century, the governments of Ecuador and Guatemala sought to spread scientific medicine to their populaces, working to prevent and treat malaria, typhus, and typhoid; to boost infant and maternal well-being; and to improve overall health. Drawing on extensive, original archival research, David Carey Jr. shows that highland indigenous populations in the two countries tended to embrace a syncretic approach to health, combining traditional and new practices. At times, both governments encouraged—or at least allowed—such a synthesis: even what they saw as "nonscientific" care was better than none. Yet both, especially Guatemala's, also wrote off indigenous lifeways and practices with both explicit and implicit racism, going so far as to criminalize native medical providers and to experiment on indigenous people without their consent. Both nations had authoritarian rule, but Guatemala's was outright dictatorial, tending to treat both women and indigenous people as subjects to be controlled and policed. Ecuador, on the other hand, advanced a more pluralistic vision of national unity, and had somewhat better outcomes as a result. |
Contents
Indigenous Healing State | 22 |
Empíricos Indigeneity and Scientific Medicine | 57 |
Midwifery | 86 |
Perceptions | 118 |
The Ethnicity of Highland Diseases | 147 |
Other editions - View all
Health in the Highlands: Indigenous Healing and Scientific Medicine in ... David Carey Limited preview - 2023 |
Common terms and phrases
AGCA Aguascalientes Alchon American Andean archival authorities Boletín Sanitario Carey Chimaltenango Clark Colonial Comalapa correspondencia Cueto and Palmer culture curanderos Descripción índice Dirección Director disease doctors Duke University Press Ecuador Ecuadorian Ecuadorian officials elites empíricos epidemics ethnicity fever folder Gaceta Gender Guatemala and Ecuador Guatemala City Guatemalan officials Guayaquil healers healthcare highland History hookworm hospital hygiene Ibarra Ibid Indians indígenas indigenous indigenous communities indigenous healing indios infant mortality infected jefe político José Kaqchikel Kichwa labor ladinos Latacunga Latin America León malaria Marc Becker Maya medical professionals Mexico midwifery midwives mosquitos municipal NOTES TO CHAPTER obstetric patients political populations poverty practices public health public health campaigns public health initiatives public health officials Pública quinine Quito race racial RF representatives Rockefeller Foundation Rowan rural Sacatepéquez Sáenz Salud Sanidad Sanitario de Guatemala scientific medicine social medicine traditional twentieth century typhoid typhus Ubico unlicensed vaccination women