Title: The black doctors of colonial Lima : science, race, and writing in colonial and early Republican Peru /
Authors: Jouve Martín, José Ramón
Year: 2014
Subjects: Larrinaga, José Pastor.; Dávalos, José Manuel.; Valdés, José Manuel.; Larrinaga, José Pastor,; Dávalos, José Manuel,; Valdés, José Manuel,; Valdés, José Manuel,; Dávalos, José Manuel,; Larrinaga, José Pastor,; History, 19th Century; History, 18th Century; Blacks; Physicians history; Social medicine Peru Lima History.; Science Social aspects Peru Lima History.; Medical writing Social aspects Peru Lima History.; Race Social aspects Peru Lima History.; Physicians Peru Lima History.; Surgeons Peru Lima History.; Black people Peru Lima History.; Black people in medicine Peru Lima Social conditions; Black people in medicine Peru Lima Social conditions; Physicians Peru Lima Biography.; Surgeons Peru Lima Biography.; Black people Peru Lima Social conditions; Black people Peru Lima Social conditions; Peru ethnology; Peru; Lima (Peru) Race relations History.; Peru Colonization History.
Abstract: In this groundbreaking study on the intersection of race, science, and politics in colonial Latin American, Jose Jouve Martin explores the reasons why the city of Lima, in the decades that preceded the wars of independence in Peru, became dependent on a large number of bloodletters, surgeons, and doctors of African descent. The Black Doctors of Colonial Lima focuses on the lives and fortunes of three of the most distinguished among this group of black physicians: Jose Pastor de Larrinaga, a surgeon of controversial medical ideas who passionately defended the right of scientific learning for Afro-Peruvians; Jose Manuel Davalos, a doctor who studied medicine at the University of Montpellier and played a key role in the smallpox vaccination campaigns in Peru; and Jose Manuel Valdes, a multifaceted writer who became the first and only person of black ancestry to become a chief medical officer in Spanish America. By carefully documenting their actions and writings, The Black Doctors of Colonial Lima illustrates how medicine and its related fields became areas in which the descendants of slaves found opportunities for social and political advancement, and a platform from which to engage in provocative dialogue with Enlightenment thought and social revolution.
Contents: Introduction -- 1. From Healers to Doctors -- 2. Enlightened Surgeons, Public Writers -- 3. Doctors, Citizens, Revolutionaries -- 4. A Black Protomédico in Republican Peru -- Conclusion.