The Making of Medical Criminals in Guatemala City: Public Health, Legal, and Criminal Surveillance of Venereal Diseases

In the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, Guatemala City public health, police, government officials, and medical doctors were concerned with the spread of venereal disease in the capital city. Initially, public health and police surveillance targeted female sex workers who sold sex in brothels and on the dimly lit streets. While selling sex was not considered a crime, the spread of venereal disease infections, either knowingly or unknowingly, was. This paper examines how local criminal, legal, and public health institutions targeted everyday Guatemalan citizens for their potential to spread disease. Herrera’s analysis includes public health and medical research publications, police department documents, and court records to argue that everyday Indigenous and mixed-race Guatemala City citizens were viewed as medical criminals by the city’s elite due to their potential to spread venereal disease. The individuals targeted were considered some of the most marginalized in Guatemalan society: Indigenous and mixed-race men, women, and children who labored in jobs that required either physical touch or close proximity to others, such as sex workers, teachers, hair barbers, and restaurant waiters, and children who were considered the future of a “progressing” nation.