In 1904 when Governor Hunt lobbied for funds to establish the first Puerto Rico Anemia Commission, thereby introducing a new administration in rural areas. The campaign appealed to many physicians pre-existing interest in regenerating rural jibaros and by implication, intervening in a variety of economic and political relationships that were compromised by the hurricane and the change in sovereignty. Ashford, who highlighted the central economic importance of anemia and workers efficiency within U.S. colonial interests, and emphasized a specific etiology. The hookworm-anemia campaign not only upended traditional discourse on the island with regard to rural peasants’ health, but also obscured the socioeconomic context of hookworm infection and anemia.
References:
- http://shm.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/15/shm.hkt001.abstract
- Pagan T, Nicole. Modern Colonization by Medical Intervention:. Boston, 2013.
Photo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/William_H._Hunt.jpg