Product Description

This new book tells the story of Miguel Perdomo Niera, a healer whose amazing cures during his travels through the northern Andes in the 1860s and 1870s evoked both enormous hostility and widespread adulation.

A combination of narrative and analysis, the book documents Perdomo’s experiences in Colombia and Ecuador and offers valuable insights into the social history of medicine during the “Great Transformation” in nineteenth-century Latin America. Reactions to Perdomo also illuminate the conflicts between colonial and modern and between religious and secular belief systems in Latin America during this time. This era pitted the norms of colonial Latin America against forces of change that shaped contemporary Latin America. Perdomo’s practice of medicine demonstrated a strong religious influence that liberals thought were incompatible with a modern, secular society.

During periods of social change, the fundamental nature of healing beliefs can lead to serious disputes. Seldom have the contentions surrounding competitive medical systems been so starkly illuminated as in the case of Perdomo. One of a group of “empirics”—also known as cranderos, bleeders or barbers—who offered health care to people in Latin America, Perdomo did not charge for his services. Many people were perplexed by his cures. The drugs that he used allegedly enabled him to perform minor surgery without pain, swelling, or excessive bleeding. Supporters wrote numerous testimonials expressing their gratitude for his ability to cure illnesses that had plagued them for years.

But Perdomo also had his detractors. Physicians, formally trained medicos, and those who supported scientific modernization were critical of Perdomo’s practice of Hispanic medicine, even though it was part of the medical system of the day. Blending Catholic healing beliefs with indigenous and African medical ideologies, Hispanic medicine challenged the innovations occurring in the professional medical community.

This volume also makes a singular contribution to a scholarly understanding of the emergence of medical pluralism, tracking the submergence of “traditional” medicine by the institutionalization of scientific medicine. In its investigation of the history of nineteenth-century medical history, it explores a sparsely researched historical terrain. Moreover, it examines popular healing ideologies and practices, topics that are seldom discussed in the context of nineteenth-century medical history.

The Tale of Healer Miguel Perdomo Neira is a valuable resource for courses in Latin American history and anthropology, and the history of Andean nations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1740262 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 171 pages

Review
This book significantly broadens our understanding of the contested meanings of science, religion, sickness, and disease in modern Latin America. -- Alexandra Minna Stern, University of California, Santa Cruz

This is essential reading for anyone interested in the conflictual process of modernization in nineteenth-century Latin America. -- Ann Zulawski, History and Latin American Studies, Smith College

Customer Reviews

Not too bad
The following book is interesting in that it explains medical/religious concepts from historical European and Arabic communities, and their integration within the South American context. I was expecting to read more about the man, Miguel Perdomo Neira, rather than a plethora of medical bickering between the bourgeois community in Bogota. I felt that the author could have narrowed the book by 60 pages by eliminating information that was not immediately relevant to the story of Perdomo. I understand that context needs to be set, which the author does very well, but that too much context takes away from the man who was the focus of the product description. If you can truck through the more arduous parts of the book, it is well worth the buy. This short read gives a brief history of the medical community in South America (mainly focused on Ecuador and Colombia, with short mentions about Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Mexico), and I appreciate the overall conceptual material that I didn't have before. Perdomo really did seem like an extraordinary man, and I am very happy I was able to read about a historical figure outside of the more commonly mentioned South American personalities.