Abstract

REYNOSO, Alejandra. A hereditary social pathology: suicide in Mexico City, 1876-1910. Sig. his [online]. 2017, vol.19, n.37, pp.96-125. ISSN 1665-4420.

This article studies the changes in the interpretations of suicide in Mexico City between 1876 and 1910, based on the analysis of some works, thesis and newspapers from that time, when hereditary predisposition began to gain importance in the explanations about the causes of suicide, reaching its apogee with the theory of degeneration, which made inheritance its last cause. The change in the conception of suicide was linked to professional and ideological factors, such as the development of legal medicine and psychiatry. In addition, it emerged during the clash between liberals and conservatives due to the social changes derived from the process of modernization in the city.

Keywords : inheritance; degeneration; modernization; legal Medicine; press.

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