Notable Achievements

Associate Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones was invited as a lecturer and discussant to the inquiry immersion elective course on Decolonization within the Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He virtually gave the talk: “Colonial Legacies in the Mexican Pharmaceutical Industry: The Instituto Médico Nacional (1888-1905) and the Exploration of Medicinal Plants” to medical students and guided a discussion about how to dismantle those legacies.

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Expertise

Modern Mexico, Latin America, Medicine, Science, Pubic Health, Medical Education, Homeopathy, Global Scientific Networks, Traditional/Popular Healing, Popular Science, Spiritualism/Spiritism

Dr. Hernandez Berrones is a historian interested in understanding how disputes over scientific and medical knowledge cause social, cultural, and political change. Particularly, he is interested in how hegemonic models of medical science, medical institutions and public health policies change as a result of contending understandings of the body, health, and disease. He received his B.Sc. in Biology and M.A. in Philosophy of Science at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He graduated from the doctoral program in the History of Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco under the supervision of Dorothy Porter and Gabriela Soto Laveaga. He became interested in the history of medicine, science, and public health as a result of his own family experiences with medical pluralism. His book titled A Revolution in Small Doses: Homeopathy, the Medical Profession, and the State in Mexico, 1893-1942 is under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. He recently published the article “Homeopathy ‘for Mexicans’: Medical Popularisation, Commercial Endeavours, and Patients’ Choice in the Mexican Medical Marketplace, 1853-1872” in Medical History. His work received the 2016 Pressman Award of the American Association for the History of Medicine given to an outstanding PhD dissertation in twentieth-century history of medicine and a proposal to turn it into a publishable monograph. It also received the 2015 Hans-Walz Prize for studies in the history of homeopathy by the Institute of the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart, Germany.

 

  • Dr. Hernandez Berrones is a historian interested in understanding how disputes over scientific and medical knowledge cause social, cultural, and political change. Particularly, he is interested in how hegemonic models of medical science, medical institutions and public health policies change as a result of contending understandings of the body, health, and disease. He received his B.Sc. in Biology and M.A. in Philosophy of Science at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He graduated from the doctoral program in the History of Health Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco under the supervision of Dorothy Porter and Gabriela Soto Laveaga. He became interested in the history of medicine, science, and public health as a result of his own family experiences with medical pluralism. His book titled A Revolution in Small Doses: Homeopathy, the Medical Profession, and the State in Mexico, 1893-1942 is under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. He recently published the article “Homeopathy ‘for Mexicans’: Medical Popularisation, Commercial Endeavours, and Patients’ Choice in the Mexican Medical Marketplace, 1853-1872” in Medical History. His work received the 2016 Pressman Award of the American Association for the History of Medicine given to an outstanding PhD dissertation in twentieth-century history of medicine and a proposal to turn it into a publishable monograph. It also received the 2015 Hans-Walz Prize for studies in the history of homeopathy by the Institute of the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart, Germany.

     

  • Awards

    Jack D. Pressman-Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Development Award American Association for the History of Medicine, 2016

    Hans Walz Prize for Studies in the History of Homeopathy, Institute for the History of Medicine, Robert Bosch Stiftung, 2015

    Research Grants and Fellowships (selected)

    Summer Stipend Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, spring, 2019.

    Sam Taylor Fellowship, General Board of Higher Education, fall, 2018.

    Junior Sabbatical, Southwestern University (for Spring 2018), fall, 2016.

    Southwestern Faculty Competitive Funds, summer, 2016.

    Southwestern Faculty Competitive Funds, summer, 2015.

    Research Fellow, CINVESTAV, IPN, summer, 2011.

    The University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States – Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (UCMEXUS-CONACYT), 2009–14

    CONACYT Graduate Studies Fellowship, 2004–6

    UNAM’s Graduate Studies Division Fellowship, 2004–6

     

  • Refereed Articles

    “Breaking the Boundaries of Professional Regulation: Medical Licensing and Foreign Influence in the Consolidation of Homeopathy in Mexico”, História, Ciência, Saúde, Manguinhos 26, 4 (2019), 1243-1262. https://doi.org/10.1590/s0104-59702019000400014

    “Medicine ‘for Mexicans’: Medical Popularization, Commercial Endeavors, and Patients’ Choice in  the Mexican Medical Marketplace, 1853-1872”, Medical History, 61, 4, (October, 2017), 568-589, https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2017.59

    Other Texts

    “Homeopathy in Latin America and Spain: Local Developments and International Networks”, co-authored with Patricia Palma, Introduction to the special Dossier titled “Homeopathy in Latin America and Spain: Local Developments and International Networks” in História, Ciência, Saúde, Manguinhos 26, 4, (2019), 1240-1242https://doi.org/10.1590/s0104-59702019000400013

    Book Reviews

    Sloan, Kathryn A. Death in the City: Suicide and the Social Imaginary in Modern Mexico. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017, 257pp. Review by Jethro Hernandez Berrones for H-LatAm (https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=50971). February, 2018

    Duncan, Whitney L. The Culture of Mental Health in a Changing Oaxaca. University of California, San Diego, 2012. Doctoral Dissertation. Reviewed by Jethro Hernandez-Berrones for Dissertation Reviews (http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/7261), February 5, 2014

    Digital Publications and Projects

    “Understanding social and cultural values through homeopathy”, Interview, História, Ciências, Saúde–Manguinhos, December 2019, http://www.revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br/english/understanding-social-and-cultural-values-through-homeopathy/

    “A Recipe for the Body: Chiropractic Medicine in Mexico (Part II),” The Recipes Project, December 12, 2019, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/16107

    “A Recipe for the Body: Chiropractic Medicine in Mexico (Part I),” The Recipes Project, December 18, 2019, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/16087

    “A visit to the Battle Creek Sanitarium (1914)” on Digital Texas Heritage Resource Center, Southwestern University Special Collections and Archives, https://texasheritage.omeka.net/exhibits/show/popularizing-science-class-exh

     

  • Note: This is a list of selected seminars and not a complete list.

    Invited lecture, talks, seminars, workshops

    “¿Proletaria o burgesa?: El dilema de la profesión médica mexicana después de la revolución”, Lecturer, Seminario permanente de historia de la medicina y la salud pública en América Latina, Facultad de Medicina, UNAM, Mexico, May 28, 2019.

    “Mystic of Medicine, Modern Curandero, and “Improvised Doctor”: Francisco I. Madero and the Practice of Homeopathy in Rural Mexico at the Turn of the Twentieth Century”, Workshop: The Gray Zones of Medicine(s): Towards a History of Healers and Healing in Colonial and Modern Latin America and the Caribbean. University of Wisconsin, Madison, September 14-15, 2018.

    “Medicine in Revolution”: Mapping Homeopathy into the Landscape of Mexican Medical Science, 1861-1934. History and Philosophy of Science Colloquium, Luncheon Series, University of Texas, Austin, November 2016.

    “Brindando educación médica científica a la clase trabajadora. Las escuelas de medicina homeopática y la centralización de la educación médica en la ciudad de México, 1895-1940”, Departamento de Investigación Educativa, CINVESTAV, IPN; Departamento de Historia de la Medicina, UNAM, Mexico, June, 2015.

    Conference Presentations

    “Midwife Tomasa C. de Jumper: The Appropriation of and Contestation to Obstetrical Knowledge after the Mexican Revolution”, Southeastern Conference of Latin American Studies 67th Annual Meeting, Austin, TX, March 2020

     “Medicine in Revolution: Mapping Homeopathy in the Landscape of Mexican Medical Science, 1861-1934”, History of Science Society annual meeting, Seattle, WA, Nov 1-4, 2018

    “Teaching Medicine to the Working Class: Private Medical Schools in Revolutionary Mexico, 1910-1940”, 15th International Reunion of Historians of Mexico, Guadalajara, Mexico, October 2018.

     “From Foreign Healers to International Doctors: Internationalism and the Consolidation of Homeopathy in Mexico, 1853-1942”, 25th International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Rio de Janerio, Brazil, July, 2017.

    “Hostilidad”, “Desorden”, and “Indisciplina”: The Challenges of Medical Pluralism at the National Homeopathic Hospital during the Age of Institutionalization of Biomedicine in Mexico City, 1893-1934, American Association for the History of Medicine, Nashville, TN, May, 2017.

     


In the News

  • History Professor Wins Prestigious NEH Grant

    Assistant Professor of History Jethro Hernández Berrones was awarded a 2019 Summer Stipend by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

  • Incredible Journeys

    Southwestern students, staff, and faculty learn—and grow—abroad.