Dr Moreno Cañas: A symbolic bridge to the demedicalization of healing

Setha M. Low

Social Science & Medicine, 1982, vol. 16, issue 5, 527-531

Abstract: Costa Rica is a rapidly developing country with an expanding system of nationalized health care and a growing professional medical sector. This expansion affects the medicalization of health culture, including the symbolic and religious aspects of popular healing traditions. This study describes the myth and cult of Dr Moreno Cañas, a physician murdered in 1938, who is prayed to, or ritually invoked for cures and good fortune. The cult of Dr Moreno Cañas complements and modifies the healing role of the Costa Rican patron saint, the Virgen de Los Angeles, by idealizing modern science and technology. The cult of the doctor is a reaction of laypeople to the secularization of health problems, and to the medicalization of care. The myth and cult of Dr Moreno Cañas creates a popular image of secular medicine that laypeople sacrilize by treating it in a religious manner, and in doing so demedicalize control of their own care.

Date: 1982
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