Establishment and defense of the Rural Medicine career at the National Polytechnic Institute, 1938–1944

Abstract

This article explains the disciplinary, professional, and ideological process that led to the creation of the Rural Medicine (MR) program in 1938 at the National School of Biological Sciences (ENCB) of the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN). It is based on the premise that this program emerged in a scenario of national debates regarding the right to health, enshrined in the 1917 Constitution, and the urgent need to train physicians with a rural focus. I explain how doctors, anthropologists, and bacteriologists from the encb played a key role in the development of this program, as they were connected to major state health institutions, scientific and educational organizations, and social organizations – such as unions –, which promoted a medicine with a social and rural focus. I also discuss how the program was defended by its founders against various medical sectors at the Second National Congress on Rural Hygiene in November 1938. Finally, I conclude that this defense ensured the consolidation of the program, which in 1944 transformed into the Superior School of Rural Medicine. This research is supported by sources from the ipn Historical Archive, the National General Archive, and hemerographic sources.