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Author Fields, Sherry Lee.

Title Pestilence and headcolds : encountering illness in colonial Mexico / by Sherry Fields
Published [New York, N.Y.] : Columbia University Press, ©2008

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Description 1 online resource (xxi, 188 pages)
Series Gutenberg (e)
Contents Pestilence and headcolds -- Doctors, bleeders, and virgins -- The whole of our flesh -- Managing the humors -- Encountering illness
Summary If one of the goals of historical research is to get as close as possible to the texture of daily life in worlds we have lost, then some understanding of the beliefs people had about their health is essential, especially if they lived in an age when the death rates from infectious disease were high and life expectancy was low. Beginning with a simple question-how did people explain why they fell sick' Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico maps out both Spanish and indigenous notions about human health as they circulated throughout colonial Mexico. As one of only two areas of high civilization in the Americas before 1492, MesoAmerica was home to a variety of peoples with a long tradition of empiric and shamanistic medicine. Beginning in the sixteenth century, however, conquering Spaniards began to impose Spanish forms of settlement and local government and European notions of race, class, and religion. They also enforced a European etiology based on the ancient texts of Hippocrates and Galen. Because of its cultural diversity, colonial Mexico is an especially rich setting for the exploration of premodern concepts of health and disease. This book draws on a variety of sources to explore the ways in which the inhabitants of colonial Mexico interpreted their health. Sherry Fields thoroughly examines such contemporary writings as native codices, travelers' accounts, chronicles, newspapers, and personal correspondences, as well as home remedy guides written for laypeople. She also considers painted ex-votos from the colonial period, not only as a comment on the illness experience in general, but also as a vehicle for exploring the connection between illness and religious faith
Notes Title from opening screen (viewed February 26, 2008)
Available in: Gutenberg-e (Columbia University Press)
"Gutenberg-e is a series of award-winning digital monographs in history, selected by the American Historical Association and published by Columbia University Press."
Based on the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Davis, 2003
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject Medicine -- Mexico -- History
Imperialism -- Health aspects -- Mexico -- History
Social medicine -- Mexico -- History
Medicine -- Mexico -- Religious aspects
Cultural pluralism.
Medicine -- Religious aspects.
Sociology, Medical -- history
History, Early Modern 1451-1600
Attitude to Health -- ethnology
Colonialism -- history
Cultural Diversity
History, Modern 1601-
Religion and Medicine
HISTORY -- Social History.
Cultural pluralism
Imperialism -- Health aspects
Medicine
Medicine -- Religious aspects
Social medicine
Spanish colonies
Alltagsbewusstsein
Krankheit
SUBJECT Spain -- Colonies -- America -- History
Mexico https://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/D008800
Subject America
Mexico
Mexiko
Spanien
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
Author American Historical Association.
Columbia University. Press.
ISBN 9780231512237
0231512236
Other Titles Encountering illness in colonial Mexico