Keywords
medicinal plants
botanical specimens
Mexican haciendas
Fernando Altamirano
Cyrus Guernesey Pringle
Instituto Médico Nacional
Mexico
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper contributes to studies on the practices of collectionism, going beyond the institutional histories of museums and herbariums to examine how specimens were collected and to identify the people who consolidated those practices. Centered on research by Mexico’s Instituto Médico Nacional (IMN, National Institute of Medicine, Mexico City, 1890-1915), I trace the itineraries and explorations of various figures: naturalists, collectors, physicians, and entrepreneurs. The article describes the distinct strategies these figures used to collect medicinal plants, animals, and minerals in rural areas, far from the spaces of scientific institutions. Through the accounts of the naturalist Fernando Altamirano (1848-1908) of the IMN, and the American Cyrus Guernesey Pringle (1838-1911) of the Gray Herbarium and Smithsonian Institution, I visit the places where they collected, focusing as well on the invisible actors who participated in those searches for knowledge, includ- ing indigenous peasants and peons who, from the countryside, contributed significantly to their medical and botanical surveys of “Mexico’s nature.”
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