Introduction

The introduction recounts the experiences of French physician Esteban Morel, who arrived in Mexico City in 1778 and immediately set about introducing inoculation among the upper classes during an epidemic of smallpox. Reluctant parents and rampant rumors of deformity and death stymied the inoculation campaign that year and suggest the critical role of nonprofessionals in colonial Mexico in healthcare reform. In an age when European monarchs looked to govern from above the health of populations, the perspectives and sensibilities of laypeople in the socially heterogeneous barrios, subdistricts, and rural regions of New Spain remained pivotal. Experiments with disease and its control were critical moments in which amateur scientists, physicians, corporate sponsors, and lay communities came together to assess the merits of reform and the relevance of Atlantic practices and projects for their own lives.