This new book tells the story of Miguel Perdomo Niera, a healer whose
amazing cures during his travels through the northern Andes in the 1860s
and 1870s evoked both enormous hostility and widespread adulation. A
combination of narrative and analysis, the book documents Perdomo's
experiences in Colombia and Ecuador and offers valuable insights into
the social history of medicine during the Great Transformation in
nineteenth-century Latin America. Reactions to Perdomo also illuminate
the conflicts between colonial and modern and between religious and
secular belief systems in Latin America during this time. This era
pitted the norms of colonial Latin America against forces of change that
shaped contemporary Latin America. Perdomo's practice of medicine
demonstrated a strong religious influence that liberals thought were
incompatible with a modern, secular society. Seldom have the contentions
surrounding competitive medical systems been so starkly illuminated as
in the case of Perdomo. One of a group of empirics, also known as
cranderos, bleeders or barbers, who offered health care to people in
Latin America, Perdomo did not charge for his services. Many people were
perplexed by his cures. The drugs that he used allegedly enabled him to
perform minor surgery without pain, swelling, or excessive bleeding.
Supporters wrote numerous testimonials expressing their gratitude for
his ability to cure illnesses that had plagued them for years. But
Perdomo also had his detractors. Physicians, formally trained medicos,
and those who supported scientific modernization were critical of
Perdomo's practice of Hispanic medicine, even though it was part of the
medical system of the day. Blending Catholic healing beliefs with
indigenous and African medical ideologies, Hispanic medicine challenged
the innovations occurring in the professional medical community. This
volume also makes a singular contribution to a scholarly understanding
of the emergence of medical pluralism, tracking the submergence of
traditional
