Abstract

ESPINOSA CORTES, Luz María  and  RUIZ ARREGUI, Liliana. To die of “alferecía” at the parish of santiago querétaro, méxico: 1838-1851. Diálogos rev. electr. hist [online]. 2018, vol.19, n.1, pp.158-180. ISSN 1409-469X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/dre.v19i1.30051.

This is an interdisciplinary study in History and Public Health, which principal objectives areto present the discussions among Western physicians on “alferecía” (convulsive disease) and its conception as a diagnostic expression as cause of infant death; to establish the distribution and seasonality of the causes of death in children under 5 years of age, and to establish thedistribution and seasonalityof deaths due to “alferecía”, according to age groups. Regarding the selected methodology, this article was constructed by historical and statistical analysis. The results show information as the following: between January 1838 and December 1851, 5,358 deaths were registered in all age groups: 2,649 (49.3 percent) occurred in the group between 0 and 5 years of age. Dysentery was found to be the first cause of death in children between 1to 5 years of age while “alferecía”was the primary cause in those under a month of age. In this second group, 81 percent died due to “alferecía”in the first two weeks of life. As a conclusion, it is possible to see that the percentage of deaths resulting from “alferecía” in infants under one month coincided with the incubation period of the bacterium Clostridium tetani, 3 to 28 days, and it is probable they were due to neonatal tetanus or ‘seventh day disease´.

Keywords : Child mortality; scientific methods; nervous system disease; age group; online searching; local knowledge.

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