Conexiones internacionales en fisiología, eugenesia y nutrición: las investigaciones sobre el metabolismo otomí en el México posrevolucionario

Resumen

Research on the otomi’s metabolism in post-revolutionary Mexico

Eugenics in México—as elsewhere—has mainly been studied from the reproductive as well as a practice with little relevance in the social landscape standpoints. In this article I argue that eugenics in Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century was broadly understood as an instrument that the State can used to “correct” and adequate to “normal” standards the national population.” Public policies employed physiology and nutrition to achieve positive or soft eugenics, which suggests that nutrition science as a discipline has eugenic roots. Our historic case is based on the research of the basal metabolism of the Otomi indigenous population from the Mezquital Valley in Central Mexico, carried out in 1936 by the Department of Hygiene and Psichopaedagogy, that belonged to the Ministry of Public Education. The case is also an evidence of eugenic practices during Cardenism and a display of the international network of scientific exchange between Mexican physicians and American and French institutions.

Key words.Physiology, Metabolism, Eugenics, Nutrition, Cardenism, Department of Hygiene and Psichopedagogy, Race, Otomi, Standardization.