Medicine and Public Health in Latin America A History

Despite several studies on the social, cultural, and political histories of medicine and of public health in different parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, local and national focuses still predominate, and there are few panoramic studies that analyze the overarching tendencies in the development of health in the region. This comprehensive book summarizes the social history of medicine, medical education, and public health in Latin America and places it in dialogue with the international historiographical currents in medicine and health. Ultimately, this text provides a clear, broad, and provocative synthesis of the history of Latin American medical developments while illuminating the recent challenges of global health in the region and other developing countries.

1. Indigenous medicine, official health, and medical pluralism; 2. National medicines and sanitarian states; 3. Making national and international health; 4. Medical innovation in the twentieth century; 5. Primary health care, neoliberal response, and global health in Latin America; 6. Conclusion.

Marcos Cueto is a professor at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz, Fiocruz, in Rio de Janeiro; co-editor of the journal História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinho; and a researcher at Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima, where he served as director-general from 2009 to 2011.
Steven Palmer is Associate Professor of History and Canada Research Chair in History of International Health at the University of Windsor, Ontario.