Contending Medical Ideologies and State Formation: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Medical Pluralism in Contemporary Colombia

This article addresses the encounter between contending medical ideologies in nineteenth-century Colombia. The first era of medical pluralism, in colonial Latin America, developed from the imposition of Hispanic medicine on existing indigenous medical systems through an imperial structure. This produced a "colonial medical spectrum" incorporating various medical ideologies that came under attack by practitioners of scientific medicine in the 1800s. As scientific physicians gained privileged access to state resources, they undertook partially successful campaigns to deny Hispanic, homeopathic, and other medical systems the right to be practiced. As the state authorized scientific medicine, other practices became "popularized," thereby laying the foundation for the medical pluralism of contemporary Colombia that juxtaposes "academic" and "traditional" medicines.