Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: March 23, 2021 at 11:17:24 PM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-LatAm]: Bigelow on Pérez Marín, 'Marvels of > Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early Colonial Spanish America' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Yarí Pérez Marín. Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific > Enquiry in Early Colonial Spanish America. Liverpool Liverpool > University Press, 2020. Illustrations. 224 pp. $130.00 (cloth), > ISBN 978-1-78962-250-8. > > Reviewed by Allison Bigelow (University of Virginia) > Published on H-LatAm (March, 2021) > Commissioned by Casey M. Lurtz > > In _Marvels of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early > Colonial Spanish America_, Yarí Pérez Marín brings literary > methods, visual analysis, and book history to an important yet > understudied body of sixteenth-century texts: medical literature > written from and about Mexico by Spanish-born writers. By focusing on > how such men (they are all men) positioned themselves as authorities > in a transatlantic world of print, attempting to make stable > ever-changing biological materials, political identities, and > literary techniques, Pérez Marín argues convincingly that their > texts "crystallise a unique moment in the history of Latin American > culture because they stood at the intersection of medicine and > coloniality, turning to the literary experience in an effort to > maintain that ultimately untenable position" (p. 6). > > The book consists of four main chapters, organized thematically > around four authors: Pedro Arias de Benavides, _Secretos de Chirugia > _(Valladolid, 1567); Alonso López de Hinojosos, _Svmma, y > recopilacion de chirugia _(Mexico City, 1578; second edition, 1595); > Agustín Farfán, _Tractado breve de anthomia y chirvgia, y de > algvnas enfermedades, que mas comunmente suelen hauer en esta Nueua > España_ (Mexico City, 1579); and Juan de Cárdenas, _Problemas y > secretos maravillosos de las Indias_ (Mexico City, 1591). This > tightly defined corpus allows for fine-grained analysis of scientific > knowledge, communication, and authority, and keeps chapter lengths > manageable for undergraduate teaching (between twenty and thirty > pages). > > The introduction lays out the difficulties of defining the very name > of the field: "colonial Latin American literature." Each term > contains its own undoing and, when phrased together, they foreground > "a teleological association between Europe and ancient Rome at the > expense of a number of other possible contenders, given the region's > diverse cultural and ethnic composition" (p. 1). Studying colonial > medical cultures offers one way to resolve the problem, revealing how > race, science, and literature worked in tandem to shape "colonial > imaginaries and subjectivities" in local and global communities (p. > 14). > > Chapter 1, "The Surgeon's Secrets: The Medical Travel Narrative of > Pedro Arias de Benavides," puts Benavides in dialogue with European > sources, like Guy de Chauliac's _Inventarium sive Chirurgia Magna > _(1363) and Andreas Vesalius's _De humani corporis fabrica libri > septem_ (1543). Pérez Marín contrasts metaphors of knowledge in > Vesalius and Benavides, showing how subtle changes from third-person > to first-person narration and ideas about correct and incorrect > treatments placed Benavides outside of European traditions that were > suspicious of innovation and within Latin American models in which > imperial agents like Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Hernán > Cortés reframed defiance as heroism. Although Mexican and European > surgical books physically resembled each other in size and form, > their images and narrative devices suggest how the work of Benavides, > "a Spanish author, living back in Spain, writing a book for fellow > Spaniards," diverged from European models (p. 48). > > Chapter 2, "Irreconcilable Differences? Anatomy, Physiology and the > New World Body," compares prose descriptions and images from Vesalius > and Charles Estienne's _De dissection partium _(1545) with Hinojoso's > _Svmma_ to show how the Spanish author emulated and departed from > European anatomy. By analyzing features like shading and perspective, > Pérez Marín argues that Hinojoso's images depict "the insides [not] > of _a _body, but rather of _the _body" (p. 71). This medical > abstraction happened at a time and in a place where debate raged > about climatic determinism, the mutability of Spanish and African > bodies in the Americas, and the influence of breast milk on human > development and racial identity. Demographically speaking, the > default body in sixteenth-century Mexico was Indigenous, a fact that > medical works dealt with uneasily, indexing debates about > colonization that were ultimately challenged by "moral and political > philosophy" rather than "science or medicine" (p. 88). > > Chapter 3, "Weakening the Sex: The Medicalization of Female Gender > Identity in New Spain," builds from this framework to analyze how a > third author, Farfán, engages with female bodies and early modern > theories of sex and gender. Unlike the physiological authors above, > Farfán's methods of "relatable, community-embedded" anatomy "did not > blaze a new trail." Anatomy, unlike physiology, was resolutely > ambiguous on the major issues of the day, proving, over time, to be > an equally "unreliable ally to the medical establishment over the > next centuries when it came to unearthing conclusive evidence of > difference related to gender and race" (p. 115). Like the _Códice de > la Cruz-Badiano_, Farfán's _Tractado_ does not separate medical > advice by sex but instead incorporates women's health into the entire > body of the work, at times "framing the discussion as a supplement to > expert advice from other medical sources and his own practice" and at > other using humor to "poke fun at women's stubborn ways" (p. 108). > This humor has bite and purpose: "The chorus of women resisting > Farfán's advice ... should not be seen necessarily as ignorant folk > merely relying on their physical sensations to draw novel > conclusions, expressing instead an embodied experience of older, once > authorized, medical knowledge" (p. 111). > > The final chapter, "Contested Medical Knowledge and Regional > Self-fashioning," uses circulation history and genre theory to show > how Cárdenas engaged with and distorted the medical authority of > Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera, primarily as a way to defend > patriotic creole knowledge and disparage the work of armchair natural > historians like Nicolás Monardes. Here, tobacco, as a proxy for New > World knowledge and practice, figured largely into debates about > medicine, individual practices, and public health. An insightful > reading of "hostile marginalia" in the British Library's copy of > Cárdenas's book concludes the chapter and suggests how local debates > about knowledge and authority in Mexico were received in Europe (pp. > 140-41). > > A brief conclusion and epilogue on Andean herbs in El Inca Garcilaso > de la Vega, writing from "Spain in the midst of a literary Golden > Age," and the medical books visible in late colonial portraits of Sor > Juana raise questions about the relationship between image and word, > Mexico and the Andes, and the role of print in mediating such issues > (p. 153). We are left to wonder whether and how ideas on health, > healing, and a continuum of racialized and sexed bodies within > Indigenous, African, and Asian communities in Latin America > influenced medical writers like those studied here. Pérez Marín's > important new work is sure to generate future research on topics like > these in literary studies of medicine. > > Citation: Allison Bigelow. Review of Pérez Marín, Yarí, _Marvels > of Medicine: Literature and Scientific Enquiry in Early Colonial > Spanish America_. H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews. March, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56181 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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