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.

About the Author
Jose R. Jouve Marti n is associate professor of Hispanic and Latin American studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at McGill University.

Reviews
" The rich portrayal of these three doctors, make this book a fine contribution not only to the history of medicine in late colonial and early republican Peru, but more generally to the study of the experience of African descended peoples in the Americas." Social History of Medicine " This well-written book will be of interest to scholars of both the history of medicine and science in Spanish America, especially during the Enlightenment, and the history of race, social relations, and politics in late colonial and early republican Peru." Hispanic American Historical Review " Black Doctors of Colonial Lima is a window onto the surprising careers of Lima' s Afro-Peruvian medical professionals, but also onto the medical debates of that city' s Enlightenment intellectuals. It is a welcome addition to the literature on science in the Americas as well as the social history of race." Bulletin of the History of Medicine



Book Information
ISBN 9780773543416
Author Jose R. Jouve Martin
Format Hardback
Page Count 244
Imprint McGill-Queen's University Press
Publisher McGill-Queen's University Press