Disease in the history of modern Latin America : from malaria to AIDS / edited by Diego Armus.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Armus, Diego.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social medicine--Latin America.

Social medicine.

Diseases--Latin America--History.

Diseases.

History.

Latin America.

Physical Description:

viii, 326 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 2003.

Summary:

Challenging traditional approaches to medical history, Disease in the History of Modern Latin America advances understandings of disease as a social and cultural construction in Latin America. This innovative collection provides a vivid look at the latest research in the social and cultural history of medicine through insightful essays about how disease -- whether it be cholera or AIDS, leprosy or mental illness -- was experienced and managed in different Latin American countries and regions at different times from the late nineteenth century to the present. Throughout, the contributors are attentive to the complex mediations between the state, medical knowledge, public health policies, economic requirements, and ordinary people's perceptions of and responses to disease.

Disease in the History of Modern Latin America is based on the idea that the meanings of sickness -- and health -- are contestable and subject to controversy. Examining diseases in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, the contributors explore the production of scientific knowledge, literary metaphors for illness, domestic public health efforts, and initiatives shaped by the agendas of international agencies. They also analyze the connections between ideas of sexuality, disease, nation, and modernity; the instrumental role of certain illnesses in state-building processes; welfare efforts sponsored by the state and led by the medical professions; and the boundaries between individual and state responsibilities regarding sickness and health. Diego Armus's introduction contextualizes the essays within the history of medicine, the history of public health, and the sociocultural history of disease.

Contents:

Disease in the Historiography of Modern Latin America / Diego Armus 1

"The Only Serious Terror in These Regions": Malaria Control in the Brazilian Amazon / Nancy Leys Stepan 25

An Imaginary Plague in Turn-of-the-Century Buenos Aires: Hysteria, Discipline, and Languages of the Body / Gabriela Nouzeilles 51

Tropical Medicine in Brazil: The Case of Chagas' Disease / Marilia Coutinho 76

Tango, Gender, and Tuberculosis in Buenos Aires, 1900-1940 / Diego Armus 101

The State, Physicians, and Leprosy in Modern Colombia / Diana Obregon 130

Revolution, the Scatological Way: The Rockefeller Foundation's Hookworm Campaign in 1920s Mexico / Anne-Emanuelle Birn 158

Between Risk and Confession: State and Popular Perspectives of Syphilis Infection in Revolutionary Mexico / Katherine Elaine Bliss 183

Dying of Sadness: Hospitalism and Child Welfare in Mexico City, 1920-1940 / Ann S. Blum 209

Mental Illness and Democracy in Bolivia: The Manicomio Pacheco, 1935-1950 / Ann Zulawski 237

Stigma and Blame during an Epidemic: Cholera in Peru, 1991 / Marcos Cueto 268

Nation, Science, and Sex: AIDS and the New Brazilian Sexuality / Patrick Larvie 290.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0822330571

0822330695

OCLC:

50768606