Public health in pre-columbian Mexico. A view from the current public health

Abstract

The Valley of Mexico in Pre-Columbian times had a well-balanced lacustrine ecosystem reflected in its inhabitants’ health. We reflect critically about current public health concepts after our study of the pre-Hispanic lifestyle, nutrition and social-religious organization. According to the pre-Hispanic world view, health was the balance and integration of the individual with the cosmos, the imbalance and disintegration of which resulted in disease. The current fragmentation of medical knowledge into isolated specialties, along with the rift between sanitary, political and social systems that has broken the human-cosmos balances an illness-producing breach. We suggest that the ecosystem balance in the Valley of Mexico can be restored by civilian initiatives which may succeed as long as they are supported both financially and politically. Such restoration would bring about social and economic development as well as betterment in the health of its inhabitants.