Abstract

This paper provides a historical background of Chinese medicine–its knowledge, therapies, practice, and practitioners–in Latin America and the Caribbean between 1840 and 1930, focusing particularly on countries with large populations of Chinese immigrants. This period marked both the rising popularity of Chinese medicine in the region and periodic conflicts between its practitioners and allopathic physicians, who sought to eradicate their foreign competitors from the expanding health market. This work seeks to illuminate the transnational circulation of a form of medical knowledge that has received sparse attention in Latin American historiography.