Book contents
- Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800
- Latin American Literature in Transition
- Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Dwelling in Transitions
- Part I Land, Space, Territory
- Part II Body
- Chapter 5 The Health of the Soul: Religious Guidance and Medical Practice in Early Colonial Mexico
- Chapter 6 Viceroy Valero’s Heart: A Traveling Relic and an Embodied Metaphor in Transit to the Indies
- Chapter 7 Humoralism and Colonial Subjugation: Indians and Medical Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
- Chapter 8 Assaulted Bodies: The Case of Two Enslaved Black Women in the Port City of Santa María de los Ángeles de Buenos Aires, 1772–1778
- Part III Belief Systems
- Part IV Literacies
- Part V Languages
- Part VI Identities
- Index
- References
Chapter 5 - The Health of the Soul: Religious Guidance and Medical Practice in Early Colonial Mexico
from Part II - Body
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2022
Book contents
- Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800
- Latin American Literature in Transition
- Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction Dwelling in Transitions
- Part I Land, Space, Territory
- Part II Body
- Chapter 5 The Health of the Soul: Religious Guidance and Medical Practice in Early Colonial Mexico
- Chapter 6 Viceroy Valero’s Heart: A Traveling Relic and an Embodied Metaphor in Transit to the Indies
- Chapter 7 Humoralism and Colonial Subjugation: Indians and Medical Knowledge in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
- Chapter 8 Assaulted Bodies: The Case of Two Enslaved Black Women in the Port City of Santa María de los Ángeles de Buenos Aires, 1772–1778
- Part III Belief Systems
- Part IV Literacies
- Part V Languages
- Part VI Identities
- Index
- References
Summary
Though addressed to members of the clergy, the Constituciones del arçobispado y prouincia dela muy ynsigne y muy leal ciudad de Tenuxtitlan Mexico (1556) set aside specific instructions for medical practitioners. Making concessions for surgeons and apothecaries, such as excluding them from fines or allowing them to work on holy days, they were asked to police their patients’ behavior, going as far as to deny follow up care to those who refused confession. Practitioners were also cautioned against prescribing cures for the “good health of the body” that compromised the “good health of the soul.” The religious manuals and vernacular medical texts of sixteenth-century Mexico shared a common language, setting and investment in their emerging community. They followed a prescriptive approach and saw themselves as exercising a corrective social function, capturing in detail the very behaviors they purportedly sought to curtail. This essay examines how physical health and self-discipline were viewed in relation to the colonial body in these sources, considering the ways in which this template was refracted to include the African, indigenous, and female bodies in their pages.
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- Latin American Literature in Transition Pre-1492–1800 , pp. 81 - 92Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022
References
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