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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY— PUBLICATION NO. 



pital in Trujillo if the lives of mother and child are 

 not to be lost. It is likewise agreed that all cases of 

 major surgical intervention must be handled by 

 medicos and. in fact, there are, so far as I know, no 

 "native" techniques of major surgery in practice in 

 Moche. However, the ordinary Mochero will usually 

 either express skepticism that surgery is necessary 

 in a given case or attribute the need for it to non- 

 scientific causes. For example, the great-aunt of one 

 of my informants died last year of cancer. At least 

 this was the medical diagnosis, and the family is 

 willing to admit that she had cancer. However, they 

 are firmly convinced that it was originally caused by 

 the fact that she had been briijada (bewitched). At 

 first she was treated by hrujcria (curative witch- 

 craft). When she got worse, she was turned over to 

 a medico and, finally, at considerable expense, was 

 taken to Lima for an operation. The hospital care 

 and surgery were actually supervised by the then 

 Minister of Public Health, who took a personal in- 

 terest in the case, by reason of being a friend of a 

 friend of the family. The family, in short, was con- 

 vinced that the best of scientific medical care had 

 been provided for the old lady. However, after the 

 operation she was returned to Moche and, as is often 

 the case with postoperative cancer conditions, con- 

 tinued to decline after a short period of improvement. 

 Finally, as a last desperate resort, she was taken to 

 Salas, the great center of the north coast hrujcria, 

 where, after a short period of treatment by the best 

 brujos. she died. Her body was brought back to 

 Moche in a truck for burial, and when the box was 

 opened after the journey, it is said that she had 

 turned over during the trip and was found to be 

 lying on her face- — the final insulting result of the 

 original hrujcria which had caused the sickness. Al- 

 though this case is slightly more spectacular than the 

 average, it is typical of many with which I was 

 familiar personally or through reliable accounts. In 

 the treatment of illness, however serious, the modern 

 Mochero oscillates between folkloristic methods of 

 treatment and modern scientific medicine (i. e., that 

 version of it which exists in this region), with the 

 balance usually tipped in favor of the folkloristic 

 The Mochero takes the stand that he will try the 

 medico, but if satisfactory results are not forth- 

 coming, lie will seek out a hrujo or cnrandero. A 

 cummon comment is, "Perhaps the medicos know- 

 some things, but. among us people here, there are a 

 lot of things which they can't cure. Take susto, for 



example. The medicos don't know anything about i 

 it." 



As we go on with a description of the folkloristic jj 

 cures, it will be noticed that "modern" elements ap- 

 pear, even in the most esoteric parts of the hrujeria 

 and curandisiiio. One "modern" institution appears 

 to be indispensable to folkloristic medicine in its pres- 

 ent form, namely, the drug store or hotica.^' Without 

 the hotica, neither the curandcros nor the brujos could 

 carry on their present practices, since certain products 

 which play a central role in their manipulations are 

 obtainable only from these institutions. 



To sum up, the treatment of sickness among the 

 present-day Mocheros is handled by three general 

 classes of specialists : ( 1 ) Physicians, i.e., practi- 

 tioners of modern medicine; (2) brujos (witches), 

 and (3) curandcros or curers. 



In addit.ion, every adult person is acquainted with a 

 number of first-aid practices and the uses of certain 

 herbs and other remedies. This may be called the 

 unspecialized. household medicine. As in rural com- 

 munities in the United States, certain individuals, 

 usually older persons, have a wider knowledge of 

 these household remedies than others, without pre- 

 tending to be specialists or making a profession of 

 their knowledge. 



Since the present section is not a treatise on modern 

 medicine, we shall leave the practitioners of this 

 science among the Mocheros to tlieir own devices, 

 mentioning them and their arts only as they enter in- 



^" Xeitller in ttie Sierra nor the coastal cultures of prehistoric times 

 do we find clear evidence of pharmacists or pharmacies, although, as 

 Valdizan says, we may see an antique parallel in the persons still 

 found in most markets dedicated to the sale of medicinal products. 

 Such specialists seem to date from prehistoric times. True pharma- 

 cists were introduced by the Spaniards, but not for some time after 

 the Conquest. "In the first years of the conquest there was neither 

 medico, nor surgeon, nor farmacist." The first mention of pharmacies 

 occur? in the year 1.S37 (Libro de Cabildos). "The boticas of the 

 colonial period . . . must have had some similarity to the present 

 stands of herbalists, since herbs and vegetable simples compo-ed the 

 principal part of tlie therapeutic arsenal of those times, when the 

 pharmacists had to store up a quantity of leaves, roots, woods, flowers 

 which served as the base for the preparation of ptsans and potions 

 The pharmacists kept a large quantity of lards, greases, 

 viscera of certain animals {the omentum of the hog, for example), 

 etc. To the Spanish system of weights and measures there was 

 added another, completely conventional, not only in Colonial Peru, 

 but in the whole world. We refer to the bits {pocos or pocas^, hand- 

 fuls, knife pointsful. papers." Lickers (persons who lick the skin, 

 la»icdorcs) and scrintiiicros (persons who specialized in giving 

 enemas) were other colonial medical specialists. Mustard plasters were 

 much employed. The training of pharmacists during the colonial 

 period was by apprenticeship and practice, and it was not until the 

 establishment of the Colegio de San Fernando in Lima in ISOS that 

 formal courses in pharmacy were offered in Peru. More scientific 

 training and supervision of pharmacists began in 1856 witli the estab- 

 lishment of the Facultad de Medicina in the University of San Marcos. 

 (See Valdizan. lOoS, article "Boticas," vol. 2, pp. 173-1S6.) 



