Medicine, culture an feeding: the construction of indigenous food in the Western medical imaginary through the vision of Doctor Francisco Hernández

Abstract

The study of food provides fertile ground for an analysis of the ideological and symbolicdimensionsof the act of eating as a sociocultural construct. Among the multiple dimensions that encompass the phenomenon of food, its insertion into medical thinking makes a clear link between food, medicine and culture. This tripartite relationship provides a way to reflect on the historical-anthropological relativity from which the idea of therapeutic” eating emerged in medical ideas over time. The pharmacological properties attributed to foods are part of the belief system that emerges from the ideologies associated with a medical culture in a particular time and space. The work of botanist and naturalist doctor Francisco Hernandez, who classified and systematized the natural environment of Mexico in the Natural History of New Spain between 1571 and 1576, demonstrates not only how the process of conquest led to an exchange of ideas, but also how traditional knowledge of Mesoamerican medicine affected the principles of Western medicine. Hernandez’s work in early colonial Mexico fundamentally contributed to the construction of indigenous foodways as a therapeutic resource.