War is hazardous for your health: photographs and testimonies about death, wounds, disease and medical care during the Mexican Revolution.
Revolutionary wars have devastating and far-reaching effects on the health of the populations caught up in them. However, the deaths and injuries produced by weaponry are only part of the story, because diseases resulting from malnutrition and contaminated drinking water account for the majority of medical problems. This essay uses photographs and testimonies of participants to explore health issues during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), as well as incorporating secondary literature on this question. Furthermore, photographic images are not presented as simple (indexical) windows onto the world. Rather, the author attempts to identify the imagemakers and provide explanations that help in imagining the reasons behind the making of the photographs.
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades Alfonso Vélez Pliego, Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, México DF, México. mraz.john@gmail.com
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