User:Mechealarconr

My name is Mercedes, I'm 20 years old

I'm here because of my medical english class, but I actually enjoy exploring Wikipedia :) I chose to study medicine because I really think our body is amazing and I love learning about it.. sometimes.

I'm interested in autoimmune diseases, like lupus, it's kind of an interesting story, few years ago I was sick and my mom thought that I had lupus :( so I started looking about it, and I found out that Toluca (the city where I live) has the highest city with lupus rate in Mexico, and I got very interested in this kind of diseases. Fortunately, I don't have lupus :) but I think that someday I'll help people with this disease. That's the reason why I'm studying medicine.



==Major outbreak in the Colonial Period= During the colonial period, small pox remained a scourge especially on the indigenous population. There was a major epidemic between 1790 and 1791 that started in Valley of Mexico, principally affecting children. More people recuperated than died. In Mexico City of 5400 cases admitted to the hospital, 4431 recuperated and 1,331 died. (Informe del virrey conde de Revillagigedo, 1793).This epidemic coincided with the rise of prices of corn and a typhus epidemic which caused a light demographic decrease in Mexico central area.

Another smallpox epidemic came into Mexico from Guatemala in 1794. Oaxaca and Chiapas were the first places affected by small pox because of proximity. The epidemic traveled from Oaxaca to Puebla, and then was spread to Mexico City and Veracruz by 1797. By 1798 the epidemic had reached Saltillo and Zacatecas. (Balmis, 1805) This outbreak is notable because that was the first time that sanitary and preventive campaigns were implemented in New Spain, such as quarantines, inoculation, isolation and the close of roads. Different institutions provided health and public services to fight against the smallpox epidemic: the most important were The “Ayuntamiento” or City Council, the Catholic Church and Real Tribunal del Protomedicato which was an institution founded in 1630 that manage all sanitary aspects of New Spain including the establishment of quarantines. Charity Boards were created, where rich people of the city donated money to build hospitals and to help and cure the sick. This Charity Board was lead by Mexican archbishop Alonzo Núñez de Haro. (Hopkins, 2002) The interest of rich people to help the poor was not only philanthropic as the death of those sectors caused economic problems; indigenous population was not able to pay tribute or work. The Church managed hospitals and cemeteries forced people to bury dead people with lime at the outside of cities. The isolation of sick people in hospitals or charities at the outsides of the cities was another important measure to stop the smallpox infection. These institutions took care of patients and provided them food and medicine. During the 1797 and 1798 outbreak they also provided inoculation and were called Inoculation houses. (Charity Board informs). Although inoculation was practiced, miasma theory of disease was still believed. In 1796 Gaceta de México published an article in which the use of inoculation was promoted, giving examples of kings and important persons who were inoculated. (Gaceta México bioterrorismo) In January 1798 the eradication of the 1790’s epidemic was declared. The government proposed that the measures taken in this epidemic to be implemented as the official policy in the case of a new epidemic, and it was approved by City Council in April 1799. (UNAM, Patricia)Viceroy Miguel José de Azanza ordered an article written on 14 of November of 1799 about the benefits resulting from the inoculation in the 1790’s epidemic and distributed to the population. (AGN,Bandos) In 1803 the Spanish doctor Francisco Xavier Balmis started a vaccination program against smallpox in New Spain, better known as Balmis Expedition, which reduces the severity and mortality in the next epidemics. Before Balmis Dr José María Arboleyda started a vaccination campaign in 1801 that failed. There was another important outbreak in 1814 which started in Veracruz and extended to Mexico City, Tlaxcala and Hidalgo. This epidemic forced Viceroy Calleja to take preventive measures like fumigations and vaccination, which were successful.

There were sporadic outbreaks until 1826 when small pox appeared in Yucatán, Tabasco and Veracruz brought by North American ships. In 1828 there were reported cases in Hidalgo, Oaxaca, State of Mexico, Guerrero, Chiapas, Chihuahua and Mexico City

=Erradication= Efforts to eradicate smallpox in Mexico started with Dr José Ignacio Bartolache who wrote a book in 1779 about smallpox called “Instrucción que puede servir para que se cure a los enfermos de las viruelas epidemicas que ahora se padecen en México”(Instructions that may help to cure smallpox in Mexico) in which he included a introduction about what is smallpox and instructions to treat it, such as drinking warm water with salt and honey, gargling with water and vinegar, keep tidy and cleanliness and finish treatment taking a purgative. He thought that smallpox was a remedy of nature to clear bad mood and doctors should not accelerate the process of healing because it was against nature. He wrote a letter to propose his measures as a strategy to combat smallpox in which he also included recommendations like purify air with gunpowder and scent, ventilate churches where bodies were buried and to build cemeteries outside the city. This strategy was approved by City Council in September of 1779.