[Anthropology and "crisis in medicine": The pathologist M. Kuczynski-Godard (1890-1967) and the indigenous peoples of Central Asia and Peru]

Abstract

This article examines the work of the German-Peruvian physician Max Kuczynski/Máxime Kuczynski-Godard (Berlin 1890-Lima 1967) in rural areas of Central Asia (1924-26) and Peru (1938-48). The main focus of the text is on the scientific approach behind the specific interest of this pathologist in disease and health issues among native populations. Kuczynski's theoretical considerations are analyzed in the context of the wide controversies within the German medical community around a "crisis in medicine" when he was professor at Berlin University during the interwar years. Accordingly, his determination to leave the laboratory and to shift research and healthcare practice closer to rural populations proves to be the expression of profound epistemological and ethical considerations.