Between the probe and the pen: physicians and other medical practitioners in judicial proceedings in Córdoba del Tucumán (18th century)

Abstract

The criminal judicial files of Cordoba del Tucuman have been studied from various approaches, in a thematic arc that ranges from the history of law and institutional history through daily life to social control in times of Bourbon reforms. As a documentary source, they are testimonies of special richness in relation to the social, regional and imaginary and have not yet been fully valued for historical reconstruction, such as, for example, in relation to daily life and the history of the medicine. Therefore, from the perspective of the history of everyday life, we will approach the practices of medical professionals in judicial processes, recognizing bruises, corpses, diagnosing diseases and giving therapies and medications. In these practices we not only found the physician, but also others who had to recognize ‘marks’ in living and dead subjects (judicial officials - mayors quadrilles, of the Santa Hermandad and ordinarys - and suitable ones who healed), in order to obtain evidence of a crime committed (injuries, deaths) and initiate a legal process to find the guilty party. The objectives of this first approach to the subject are to determine who were the auxiliaries of Justice called to carry out the examinations (both medical and qualified); the diseases, symptoms, causes thereof and wounds resulting from attacks, fights and quarrels; We will place special emphasis on medical practice, with its technical vocabulary, its tools, medicines an administered therapies. We understand that the information collected in the judicial crime files will allow us to enrich, from the forensic writings (recognitions of wounds and corpses, medical certifications), the knowledge about medicine and medical practices, as well as those carried out by qualified persons, both in the city as in the Cordoban campaign in the 18th century.