Soc Sci Med. 1985 ; 21(7): 807-18.

How to get well in Tzintzuntzan.

Foster GM.

Latin American humoral pathology, the so-called 'hot-cold syndrome' has been extensively described during the past 50 years. Most attention has been directed to the characteristics of the 'hot-cold' classification, the basis for ascription of humoral quality, the degree of individual variation in assigning qualities and above all, to etiology. Almost no systematic attention has been given to humoral therapies. This paper describes and classifies the wide variety of therapies characterizing the traditional humoral medicine of Tzintzuntzan, MichoacÃ¡n, Mexico. The names of these therapies, and those of the illnesses for which they are prescribed, point directly to Spanish and Mexican medical texts and home-care recetarios of the colonial period, publications reflecting classical Graeco-Roman medicine. The presence of significant numbers of Spaniards and Spanish-speaking residents in Tzintzuntzan for three centuries following the Conquest provides an explanation as to how classical humoral pathology could become rooted in a Mexican village.