Scratching below the surface: empire, authority, and venereal disease (Mexico City, 1789-1798)

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This project has grown out of the discovery of unexplored reports by an Irish physician, Daniel O'Sullivan, relating to a series of trials into the effect of non-mercurial cures for venereal disease held in Mexico City in the early 1790s (Relación histórico-crítica; Carta circular). The reports and correspondence clearly indicate a level of tension and suspicion in relationships among the medical and ecclesiastical authorities that has, to date, remained unexplored. They throw new, though controversial, light on the internal governance of local Mexican hospitals and raise questions relating to the means by which individuals progressed in their medical careers during this period and the use of patronage within medico-scientific circles in the eighteenth-century Spanish empire. Much is still unknown about foreign practitioners, especially the Irish, who chose to forge a career in the Spanish Americas during this period: the means by which they succeeded or failed to establish social and professional networks; the role they played in the development of medical practices; and tensions frequently evident as they negotiate the realities of the Spanish Americas. It will build particularly upon the seminal study into medical power structures undertaken by John Tate Lanning, and more recent work into medical training, practices and networks, including Miruna Achim's recent study of lizard remedies for venereal disease. In broader terms, the research can also be placed within scholarship on the relationship between Europe and the Spanish Americas, and between Ireland and Europe, especially in terms of the transmission and reception of scientific ideas, and the role of medicine and science within the 'vision' of empire, and Irish involvement in military affairs. This study will analyse his reports and assess the veracity of his accusations of malpractice, murder, deceit and corruption, within the colonial hospital system and beyond through a comparative analysis of a range of official army, hospital, and university documents associated to these events and this period. The project aims to interrogate two main documents, exploring the ambiguities of a self-consciously constructed narrative in order to understand: the tensions in the relationship between the foreign and local medical practitioners (including those posted with the military); perception of Mexican and European medical institutions in the exercise of authority (Real Protomedicato and Real Academia Nacional de Medicina); the means by which national networks (in this case the Irish) and use of patronage provided a medium for the transatlantic scientific movement of ideas.