Santa Cruz Medicine

Clergymen in Ciudad de México appealed to Nuestra Señora de los Remedios before Guadalupe in the 1737 matlazáhuatl epidemic because she had been used in processions against smallpox since 1575. The most recent had occurred in 1733 and 1734.

Angélico Chávez found evidence a smallpox epidemic had ravaged Santa Ana from April to August of 1733. He also saw records in church archives of many deaths between May and June in Santa Fé and of 15 deaths in September at Laguna. Frederic Athearn found similar records for Jémez that year.

Smallpox had become routine, arriving once a generation. Robert McCaa said, everyone in Nueva España was "taught to prepare themselves for the eruption of the pustules. Once erupted, they were comforted, given water, food, and blankets, and cautioned not to bath or scratch until the scabs had fallen away."

Quarantine was the first response in Boston in 1721. Incoming ships were impounded, and guards stationed at the House of Representatives to keep out unscreened people. When the disease first reached Nueva España in 1520, McCaa said, "for the Nahua, quarantine was a completely alien notion." From the evidence of processions, it probably still wasn’t widely accepted in 1733.

Medical practice in Europe was beginning to change. Reports had been received from Turkey attesting to the effectiveness of inoculation with a weakened strain of the Variola virus. In Boston, a Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, passed on testimony from his slave, Onesimus, that he had been inoculated as a child in Africa. A friend tried the procedure on his own son and two slaves during the epidemic of 1721. When they survived, he treated another 194. Only six died. The normal death rate was 1 in 6.

The practice spread slowly. In 1743, the foundling hospital in London was inoculating its charges. Many young women who came to the city to work as servants had themselves treated before they sought employment. Inoculation still required quarantine to prevent spread of the deliberately introduced pathogen. The treated often bristled at isolation.

Smallpox returned to Mexico City in 1748, and again Chávez found evidence it spread north. In Santa Fé, 68 died between July and September of unspecified causes. Pecos had an unidentified epidemic in August. The pueblo had had a smallpox outbreak in the winter of 1738.

Santa Cruz was less prepared this time than last. One problem would have been identifying the source of the disease. Since its symptoms appear within 12 days of exposure, anyone coming north from México would have died on the trip from lack of care. That suggests it was spread by contaminated trade goods. There would have been no way or reason to scrutinize them before the disease spread.

The other problem was no one was available to oversee quarantine or mass care. Nuevo México had recruited no new barbers since those who came with the Reconquest. Antonio Durán de Armijo died in Santa Fé in 1753 at age 80. Our local man, Francisco Xavier Romero, died in 1732. For reasons mentioned in the post for 13 January 2016, he probably trained no one.

It’s possible others passed the fundamentals of medical practice through their families. Angela Leyba may have been a curing woman in the Chama area before she died in 1727. Her father had been a Tiwa translator before the Pueblo Revolt, and she had been spent the interregnum in Galisteo as a captive. Her will listed a statue of Our Lady of Remedios, a cupping glass used in promoting the flow of blood, and some coral bracelets. Her husband, who died the year before, had a picture of Remedios and a "barber’s case, with five razors and stone."

Bartolomé Trujillo may have been local practitioner. He also lived in Chama where he owned a "medicine glass" in 1764. His wife, Margarita Torres, was the daughter of Leyba and her husband Cristóbal de Torres. His parents had been Cristóbal Trujillo and María de Manzanares.

There still were herbalists in Santa Cruz, although they rarely were mentioned in official records. Tomasa de Manzanares was brought into a court case in 1748 when José Manuel Trujillo, Bartolome’s nephew, accused Antonio Valverde and his sons of wounding him. The 54-year-old said, she was providing herbal cures for "for lack of surgeons in the kingdom."

Although there were no medical professionals to treat illnesses, there must have been midwives. Although I’ve found no references to them, women were having babies. Their skill level might be inferred from the records of infant deaths within the first days after birth. It must be remembered though, children who died young may have been premature or malnourished at birth or had some other condition that couldn’t be treated then, but is now.

In addition to the five infants mentioned in the post for 9 May 2016 who received emergency baptisms, two other girls died soon after. That would mean the infant mortality rate within the first 24 hours for the 1,291 infants with at least one known parent was 5.5 per 1,000 births.

For comparison, the US rate in 2013 was 2.6, which ranked it 69^th among the 176 countries compared by Save the Children. Among those with 5 deaths per 1,000 were Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad. Some of the countries with 6 deaths were Paraguay and Surinam.

Notes: The cyclic nature of smallpox epidemics was discussed in the post for16 April 2015. Early barbers were discussed in the post for 19 April 2015. Coral was used later to ward off the evil eye.

Santa Cruz baptisms records indicated one child died early whose parents weren’t known. It’s hard to estimate the number of births in this group, because the baptisms also included adolescent and adult captives. In addition, servants and others without status may have had less contact with the church, so that even if a friar recorded a birth, he might not learn about a death.

Athearn, Frederic J. A Forgotten Kingdom, 1978.

Chávez, Angélico. Archives of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, 1678-1900, 1957. The burial registers haven’t been transcribed by the New Mexico Genealogical Society. Chávez summarized what he read, and noted the things he though most important. The information recorded by friars no doubt varied a great deal; only a few may have bothered to record causes of deaths.

_____. Origins of New Mexico Families, 1992 revised edition. He didn’t know the relationship between María and Tomasa Manzanares; he surmised José Manuel Trujillo was the son of Bartolomé.

Christmas, Henrietta Martinez. 1598 New Mexico, blog.

Davenport, Romola, Leonard Schwarz, and Jeremy Boulton. "The Decline of Adult Smallpox in Eighteenth-Century London," Economic History Review 64:1289-1314:2011.

Leyba, Angela. Will, 1727, republished by Christmas as "Angela Leyba - Will 1727," 30 July 2014.

New Mexico Genealogical Society, New Mexico Baptisms, Santa Cruz de la Cañada Church, Volume I, 1710 to 1794, transcribed by Virginia Langham Olmstead and compiled by Margaret Leonard Windham and Evelyn Luján Baca, 1994.

McCaa, Robert. "Revisioning Smallpox in Mexico City-Tenochtitlan, 1520-1950," 27 May 2000.

Save the Children USA. State of the World’s Mothers 2013, 2013.

Torres, Cristóbal. Will, 1726, republished by Christmas as "Cristóbal Torrez - Will 1726," 28 July 2014.

Trujillo, Bartolomé. Will, 1764, republished by Christmas as "Bartolomé Trujillo - Will 1764," 22 May 2013.

Twitchell, Ralph Emerson. Spanish Archives of New Mexico: Compiled and Chronologically Arranged, volume 2, 1914; on Trujillo versus Valverde.

Wikipedia. Entry on Cotton Mather includes discussion of smallpox and inoculation in Boston.