the medicalization of healing cults in Latin America

This paper examines the healing cults of two Latin American doctors—Dr. Moreno Canas of Costa Rica and Dr. Jose Gregorio Hernandez—through a symbolic analysis of the doctors' life histories, the creation of myths about their lives, and the process of cult formation and transformation. The symbolic images of the two doctors are compared based on the doctors' individual characteristics and cultural meanings, the sociopolitical and historical context of the healing cults, and the structure of the myths as heroic tales. These analyses suggest that the ongoing medicalization of religious healing cults in Latin America and the increasing power of the medical sector to control and direct individual lives—particularly the lives of the poor and the politically marginal classes in Latin America—is reproduced in the generation of new symbolic images. The doctor/saint symbol that combines both the folk Catholic and Spiritist traditions of religious healing and the “high-tech” imagery of the modern physician is a reflection of the medicalization/demedicalization and secular/sacred dialectic of Latin American healing cults. [healing cults, medicalization, Latin America, popular saints, symbolic analysis, doctors]

[1]  T. Csordas,et al.  Health and the holy in African and Afro-American spirit possession. , 1987, Social science & medicine.

[2]  S. M. Greenfield,et al.  The return of Dr Fritz: spiritist healing and patronage networks in urban, industrial Brazil. , 1987, Social science & medicine.

[3]  P. Farmer,et al.  Visible saints: Social cynosures and dysphoria in the mediterranean tradition , 1986, Culture, medicine and psychiatry.

[4]  Zschock Dk.  Medical care under social insurance in Latin America. , 1986 .

[5]  J. Peeler.  Latin American Democracies: Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela , 1985 .

[6]  C. Mesa-lago,et al.  Health care in Costa Rica: boom and crisis. , 1985, Social science & medicine.

[7]  H. Gómez,et al.  Assessment of Venezuelan health services from a social development perspective. , 1985, Social science & medicine.

[8]  M. Sallnow.  a trinity of Christs: cultic processes in Andean Catholicism , 1982 .

[9]  S. Low.  Dr. Moreno Cañas: a symbolic bridge to the demedicalization of healing. , 1982, Social science & medicine.

[10]  S. Low.  The meaning of nervios: A sociocultural analysis of symptom presentation in San Jose, Costa Rica , 1981, Culture, medicine and psychiatry.

[11]  J. Macdonald.  Planning implementation and social policy: An evaluation of Ciudad Guayana 1965 and 1975 , 1979 .

[12]  A. Harwood.  Puerto Rican Spiritism , 1977, Culture, medicine and psychiatry.

[13]  A. Young.  Some Implications of Medical Beliefs and Practices for Social Anthropology , 1976 .

[14]  I. Press.  The Urban Curandero1 , 1971 .

[15]  G. M. Foster.  The Dyadic Contract: A Model for the Social Structure of a Mexican Peasant Village1 , 1961 .