On being a physician: the Gaceta Médica de México as an unsystematized manual of knowledge, 1860-1890

Abstract

This article discusses the role played by the Gaceta Médica de México in the process of institutionalizing and professionalizing scientific medicine in Mexico from 1860 to 1890. From the notion of literary technology utilized by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer and qualitative analysis of medical reports containing typical discourse, we examine how members of the Mexican National Academy of Medicine (the institution responsible for this journal) and the National School of Medicine collected their experiences and prescribed ways of being and acting through their publications. The aim is to demonstrate how this periodical acted as an unsystematized manual, an important instrument for normalizing and regulating medical knowledge in Mexico during this period.