Focus on: the unique history of homeopathic medicine in Mexico

Homeopathic medicine has had an intriguing and unique history in Mexico. While in many countries homeopathy and conventional or allopathic medicine have uncomfortably co-existed, during the first decades of the 20th century, Mexico's Escuela Nacional de Medicine Homeopatica (ENHM) was incorporated within the Universidad Autonoma Nacional de Mexico (UNAM). This symbolic merging of the two schools, which granted homeopathy legitimacy as a scientific body of knowledge and practice in the eyes of medical practictioners and the public, would be short-lived with the doors of the ENMH closing only a few years later. Jethro Hernandez Berrones, a second year doctoral fellow in History of the Health Sciences at DAHSM, is pursuing research to understand why. In 2010 Jethro was awarded the UC MEXUS Student Small Grant to conduct archival research on homeopathy and medical education in Mexico. The full article on Jethro's achievement and research can be read in the January 2012 issue of "La Monarca", the UC Mexus-Conacyt Doctoral Fellowship newsletter. The University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States, established in 1980, is an academic research institute dedicated to encouraging, securing, and contributing to binational and Latino research and collaborative academic programs and exchanges. The main focus of UC Mexus is to contribute to improve substantially binational scholarly understanding and providing positive contributions to society in both Mexico and the United States.