Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru by Adam Warren

Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru by Adam Warren

By the end of the eighteenth century, Peru had witnessed the decline of its once-thriving silver industry and had barely begun to recover from massive population losses due to smallpox and other diseases. At the time, it was widely believed that economic salvation was contingent upon increasing the labor force and maintaining as many healthy workers as possible. In Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru, Adam Warren presents a groundbreaking study of the primacy placed on medical care to generate population growth during this era. The Bourbon reforms of the eighteenth century shaped many of the political, economic, and social interests of Spain and its colonies. In Peru, local elites saw the reforms as an opportunity to positively transform society and its conceptions of medicine and medical institutions in the name of the Crown. Creole physicians, in particular, took advantage of Bourbon reforms to wrest control of medical treatment away from the Catholic Church, establish their own medical expertise, and create a new, secular medical culture. They asserted their new influence by treating smallpox and leprosy, by reforming medical education, and by introducing hygienic routines into local funeral rites, among other practices. Later, during the early years of independence, government officials began to usurp the power of physicians and shifted control of medical care back to the church. Creole doctors, without the support of the empire, lost much of their influence, and medical reforms ground to a halt. As Warren’s study reveals, despite falling in and out of political favor, Bourbon reforms and creole physicians were instrumental to the founding of modern medicine in Peru, and their influence can still be felt today.

“The book’s clearly written narratives and engaging detail make it a good choice for both undergraduate and graduate courses in colonial Latin America and the history of medicine” —Hispanic American Historical Review

“A welcome study . . . rich in detail and a valuable addition to the field for its insight into the practice of medicine as an outworking of, and response to, the social and political realities of colonial Peru, engaging a broad academic readership with an interest in social and medical history.”

—Social History of Medicine

“Warren delves into a host of provocative topics . . . Perhaps the most intriguing of Warren’s findings is that the political reforms resulting in independence terminated or stunted the medical reforms encouraged by the colonial bureaucracy.”
—Choice

Adam Warren, born 1967, is an American comic book writer and artist who is most famous for his adaptation of the characters known as Dirty Pair into an American comic book, and for being one of the first American commercial illustrators to be influenced by the general manga style. He has also contributed to several Gen13 comics, worked as writer and character designer for the Marvel Comics series Livewires, and has done numerous freelance works. His two latest projects are Iron Man: Hypervelocity and Empowered.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780822961116
ISBN 10	0822961113
Title	Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru
Author	Adam Warren
Series	Pitt Latin American Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Pittsburgh Press
Year published	2010-10-24
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.