Mexico's other wars: epidemics, disease, and public health in Guanajuato, Mexico, 1810-1867.

Abstract

"Mexico's Other Wars" refers to the fight against disease, particularly epidemic disease, during the period when Mexico gained its independence and was involved in the very conflictive process of nation-building, from 1810-1867. Controlling and eradicating disease was an integral part of that process. In this period, fighting disease assumed the crucial political purpose of making all people healthier as one means of building an economically productive civil society. To attain this goal, early nineteenth-century local policy makers organized an increasingly secular and integrated public health system governed by municipal and state officials who legislated local public health regulations. While disease was not eradicated, the incidence and severity of epidemics decreased and likely contributed, as one of many factors, to population increase. This process was evident in the city and state of Guanajuato, the focus of this paper, for Guanajuato's population almost doubled in this period despite war and intermittent armed conflict.