Petitions and prerogatives doctors and apothecaries in the corporatization of the art of healing and the formation of the provincial state in Santa Fe, Argentina (1857-1903)

Abstract

In this article we seek to investigate a particular aspect of medical professionalization in the province of Santa Fe (Argentina): authorization processes and specific requests from different professionals to act as qualified specialists. To do this, we will address a series of applications submitted by doctors and apothecaries during the second half of the nineteenth century. We are interested in a dual problem. On the one hand, the composition of the body of accredited practitioners in that territory, as well as the tensions that its creation could generate in competition with other actors. On the other hand, the processing and the result of these procedures expose a parallel process related to the consolidation of the state authority and the bond that citizens established with it, together with the dynamics of the Consejo de Higiene, the incipient agency in charge of the corporate control of the art of healing.