In the same way that people change, the same happens with all aspects of life. One of the main responsible is technology because thanks to its advances many of the daily tasks are facilitated. In fact, the modern era has brought about the greatest changes in human history, and so the trend will continue. But do you know what are the greatest medical achievements of Mexico during the last 200 years?
On this subject, Ruy Echavarría Rodríguez, Teaching Coordinator of the Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine at the UNAM Faculty of Medicine, has an answer. It affirms that public health, life expectancy, the type of diseases, medications and diagnoses are the areas in which the most favorable changes have been achieved.
“After Independence, poor public hygiene prevailed, which led to a high prevalence of infectious diseases, especially diarrheal and lung diseases, in addition to the frequent contagion of epidemics such as smallpox and cholera, inherited from the colonial era.”
He adds that some diseases, such as tuberculosis, have persisted since pre-Hispanic times in the country. While others, such as measles, chicken pox and whooping cough were European inheritances arrived in the Colony and prevalent after the revolutionary era.
In the first half of the 19th century there were serious epidemics of typhus, influenza, yellow fever and malaria. The consequences of mortality and contagion were so serious that in 1832 the government decided to absorb the expenses they caused.
“Deaths were common in up to 50 percent of children under five years of age and life expectancy was 30 to 32 years, so many chronic diseases did not affect people, such as chronic heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and breast or prostate cancer that today have high rates in the national population ”.
In your article “History of public health in Mexico: 19th and 20th centuries”, Ana Cecilia Rodríguez de Romo and Martha Eugenia Rodríguez Pérez, from the Department of History and Philosophy of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine, narrate that during this period, the growth of public health accompanied the political and social development of the country.
Medical achievements during the Independence of Mexico
They mention that at the time of Independence (1821) and at the beginning of the middle of the 19th century, the care of the sick depended in part on religious charity. The so-called “charitable public care” was introduced and later consolidated under the presidency of Benito Juárez (1856) and then continued under Porfirio Díaz (1880-1910).
In their article they explain that the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) brought the notion that public health assistance is the social responsibility of the State. Health care and social security are now part of so-called “institutional medicine”, which also encompasses research and teaching in public health.
Echavarría Rodríguez considered that an important advance was the implementation of hand washing, achieved at the end of the 19th century and which greatly reduced infections among doctors and patients. Something that is so common today was a golden rule that changed the hygiene habits of the time.
Another substantial contribution that Mexico received in the 20th century was the arrival of antibiotic drugs after World War II. From 1942 to 1943, the first news came of a drug that had a more powerful antimicrobial effect than the sulfa drugs in use at the time.
The vaccination campaigns that took place in the world in the 19th century were essential to combat epidemics. The history of vaccination in Mexico begins in 1804, when doctor Francisco Xavier de Balmis introduced inoculation against smallpox using the arm-to-arm technique. In the late 19th century, other types of immunizations were made against rabies, polio, and tuberculosis.
Echavarría indicated that the vaccination campaigns in the 1950s and 1960s of the 20th century resulted in the control of various infections and high population growth.
Since its introduction in 1991, the Universal Vaccination Program has achieved high coverage rates, meeting almost all the goals set, which include the eradication of polio, diphtheria, measles and neonatal tetanus, as well as the control of pertussis. and severe forms of tuberculosis.
Another area where there are great advances is medical diagnosis. In the 19th and 20th centuries, home consultations and auscultations with almost no instruments were common. In 1896 the first studies with radiographs were carried out, but the 20th century represented a revolution that today has imaging and the management of physics at the center for medical practice with tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and other diagnostic methods based on Medical Physics. .
It is worth mentioning that according to the article “Hospitals in New Spain in times of the War of Independence”, by Carlos Viesca Treviño, professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of the Faculty of Medicine, published in the IMSS Medical Journal, in In 1810 there were more than a hundred hospitals of different proportions and origins in our territory. Some were founded by figures associated with the exercise of public charity, others by religious orders dedicated to the care of the sick, and some more were military hospitals.
In contrast, currently, according to INEGI data from 2020, there are 4,354 hospitals in Mexico, 1,182 are public and 3,172 are private. Of the total number of public hospitals, 718 serve the population without social security and the rest the population with social security.