A debate over the link between Salvador Allende, Max Westenhöfer, and Rudolf Virchow: contributions to the history of social medicine in Chile and internationally

Abstract

In the history of Latin American social medicine, numerous works have presented a harmonious link between Rudolf Virchow, Max Westenhöfer, and Salvador Allende, which establishes the origin of ideas of Latin American social medicine in a prestigious European source, represented by Virchow. A key to that story is that Allende was a student of Westenhöfer, a disciple of Virchow who lived in Chile three times (1908-1911, 1929-1932, and 1948-1957). Based on primary sources and contextual data, this article problematizes the relationship between Allende and Westenhöfer, and questions the influence of Virchow in Chilean social medicine.

Post-growth economics: a must for planetary health justice

“…By focusing on scaling down Northern material and energy use and reducing Northern consumption and production levels while redistributing wealth and income more fairly, post-growth principles and policies not only acknowledge the reality of differentiated responsibilities for the overshoot of planetary boundaries - they are also in line with breaking the colonial patterns of appropriation that underpin rich countries’ energy and resource use that is driving the ecological crisis [ 31 ]. As such, post-growth economics are not only in line with the planetary health agenda - it is also deeply rooted in decolonial thought that goes back to thinkers like Salvador Allende, Frantz Fanon, and Thomas Sankara, who all saw an autonomy-centred approach to development as paramount to throwing off neo-colonial power [ 32 – 34 ]. It builds upon the work of dependency theorists who have exposed how growth in the North depends on the appropriation of Southern resources and labour and have pointed out that capitalism has been responsible for the accentuation of underdevelopment hence the impossibility of “catch-up” development [ 35 ].…”