History of the Air and Other Smells in Mexico City 1840-1900

By Sergio López Ramos

History of the Air and Other Smells is a text that puts in discussion the relationship with the Earth and the participation of human beings, the implications on the health of the people of the past and present in Mexico City; however, it is a large mirror for any megalopolis without a plan. Begin a discussion on the quality of air to understand the process of a geography that is subjected to devastation by the separation with nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palibrio
• Release date: May 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781506504636

Sergio López Ramos

Sergio Lopez Ramos has academic training in psychology, master in history of Mexico (UNAM), PhD in anthropology from the National School of Anthropology and History. Its production is about history of psychology, corporal and psychosomatic, his proposal led to a pedagogy of the body for the prevention of cancer and chronic degenerative diseases. He currently teaches at the Faculty of Iztacala (UNAM) in psychology, for over thrity years with the project Body.

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Copyright © 2016 by Sergio López Ramos.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Rev. date: 21/04/2016

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1 Air has its gods and body its gases

Chapter 2 Smells come and go in air politics

Chapter 3 Air and the five elements

Conclusions

Bibliography

Hemerography

In Memoriam

GERALD McGOWAN

One day we will travel the same air.

PROLOGUE

Victoria Novelo

T his book is a byproduct of Sergio López Ramos’ suffocations. The author is not old, nor suffers from tuberculosis, neither is he a runner of the 100 meter dash, and due to his genre, he does not have hot flashes either… He simply is an inhabitant (or may we already say survivor?) of Mexico City and as such, he lacks airs, he is bothered by noise and bad smells, his eyes and nose leak, he is tired from the moment he wakes up, he forgets things, he is pale, his head hurts, his ears buzz, he coughs and clears his throat. In brief, all his body resents, as well as does the bodies of other millions of people, the brutal lack of pure air to breathe. And in the face of the impurities severity which he is forced to respire, he decided to look for where the air was lost.

The author literally dived among papers published during a good part of the 19th Century, particularly on newspapers, assuming in that period of time and in such source of information he would find clues on the origin of decay in the capital’s air quality. He did so with two main ideas angling his search and subsequent analysis:

Primarily, that this whole self-evident calamitous truth which defines Mexico City as the most impure and less transparent region, results from a social structure built with the intervention of a diverse group of people often with opposite interests. In other words, the city is a space that despite having certain natural conditions is not naturally configured¹. With the second idea, of a Taoist origin, Sergio López Ramos deals with health issues caused by a polluted environment regarding the human body as a microcosm in perpetual relationship with cosmos; when this relationship loses its equilibrium due to a disturbing atmosphere, the microcosm is altered.

In this book, air takes form, color, odor; it circulates, it blocks, it travels, it locks; communicates, whistles, refreshes, sickens, kills. And most interesting of all, air does not travel alone, it is not there only as ambience, it is there as culture, as a way of life, as outcome of social relations in the making of a city wanting to be modern, industrializing and urbanizing itself without regulatory plans, without much meditation, with little order, against most of its inhabitants. The air goes through the city, invariably conditioned (oriented, manipulated or defined) by social policies, economic decisions and particular stories mixing to give the city its physiognomy.

In journalistic sources consulted one may well find out that the air subject in the 19th Century is handled in connection with hygiene- of people, streets, houses- and smells. A clean air, synonymous of hygiene is therefore synonymous of health. It is since those times a precious good aspired and reached only by privileged class members traveling to Tacubaya and Mixcoac -at the time, still far away from the city and with better air- running away from contaminated air that caused illness and death,.

That pure air, health giver which became sparse and dirty, was in a city that halfway through the 19th Century concentrated around 200,000 people, distributed in classes and social stratums. Some high which included landowners, moneylenders, great traders, bureaucrats and part of the military and ecclesiastical hierarchies; others less high including professionals, shopkeepers and public employees under which artisans, farmers and non-qualified workers – loaders, day laborers, mule drivers, domestic servers and water sellers- were placed and, at the end of the scale, beggars and the uncouth accompanied temporarily by unemployed groups considered layabouts. In the third quarter of the 19th Century, Mexico City exhibited features characteristic of the rural world amalgamated with other qualities typical of urban life, on streets people and carriages circulated alongside donkeys and horses; the presence of peasants and domestic industry was important, though simultaneously some productive branches were being industrialized and there were few expedite means of transportation.² It was a city that concentrated and redistributed merchandises. Towards the city converged a good portion of roads, and though being touched several times by wars, it was an internal migrants attraction pole due to its relative peace.³

The debate held in the 19th Century press and which thanks to this book we can follow in an organized way, allows us to look into problems and affairs we would rarely notice. Not only do we find out how all kinds of wastes circulated through the city, where they were lodged and how microbes traveled, how houses of a smaller size rarefied and contracted air and which were the ideological orientations guiding solution proposals to unhealthiness; but also, and this is very significant in this type of accounts and analysis, we confirmed the classist origin of a social definition on acceptable and gross smells, of what is clean and what is dirty, of pollution and hygiene. The representation that entails valuation is symbolized in social behaviors which will norm –accepting and prohibiting, letting go and repressing- airs surrounding people and their bodies ‘emanations publicly and privately.

The discussion in the press with scientists, politicians, shopkeepers, homeowners, could not, however, appraise the dangers of the city’s future contamination; the diagnosis on public health was kept in what we could call a provincial plane. They never imagined the repercussions of incipient industry positioning, energetics quality, new neighborhoods location, of squeezing families in ever smaller rooms, of deforestation and sowing of inadequate forestry resources, of desiccation and tubing of lakes and rivers. The dominant ideology could not envision the contradiction between a desirable quality of life in a healthy environment and the implemented urban-industrial development model. Thus, air, which we could think of as something elusive and fleeting, natural and stable, is in Mexico City, as in many other cities of the industrialized world, a concentrate of suspended particles and toxic elements which condenses an uneven fight between the supremacy of economic interests and life;⁴ it is therefore, a question that may only be studied from a political economy perspective. Scientists who study the environment say the same, although with different words.

Today, humanity is found in a situation without precedents: it is expected that in the course of one generation the environment that sustains life on Earth will change faster than in any other comparable period on human history. Much of this change is accounted to what we do. World activities, economic as well as technological, contribute to the rapid changes that impact our global environment in ways that we are only starting to understand. Effects of these changes may deeply affect future generations.⁵

In this book Sergio López Ramos voices specific origins of a history that just began to be known and understood. He manages to convey the concerns of those who observed changes in health standards of the growing city and searched for remedies. These journalists, scientists, functionaries, inspectors, all observers, if they saw today what happened to the city of their distress, they would suffer doubly: for no one heeded their first calls of attention and alert and because what they thought would destroy the air in the city is nothing in comparison to its current state. Well, they would not even be able to orient themselves parting from the location of the volcano. However, in the almost unbreathable city they would be surprised of two facts: in the first place, that life expectancy went from 32 years old to 75, and secondly that some popular sayings of their time (along with their respective incidents) survived, although they would not understand the reason why, such as castles in the air, go get some fresh air, get a second wind and that some girl is putting on airs; if anything, they would find the motherly advice don’t go out so the air won’t hit you more comprehensible.

[Colima, June 2001]

INTRODUCTION

Air as object of study; some odors and motives

The air halts

erasing footprints,

dust blurs

waiting for another

road searcher.

SERGIO LÓPEZ RAMOS

To control respiration

at will is to assault it.

LAOS TSE

2 2 years ago I left the Port of Mazatlan to come to Mexico City. I brought in my backpack one kilo of dried estuary shrimp, poem attempts and much desire to study psychology, influenced by my life teacher in that difficult art of living, Antonio Moya.

I remember having a coughing fit at arrival and being bedridden for several days; I was this close to going back to the Pearl of the Pacific. However my body responded with an organism adaptation to create new communication networks when any of the system one fails.

What was left: I always have to use a jacket or sweater, otherwise any flu attacks me or my nose starts to leak without any apparent reason. Mexico City, with its high pollution rates, began poisoning my lungs; it was and still is a challenge to survive each winter for its effects on my bronchus. During certain vacations the Pacific Ocean air brought back to me a sensation of everything flowing without obstacles in the body and I breathed consciously once and again. I understood the value of the breath of life, like Taoists call it.

Years later my body gave me many answers; as new kinds of gasoline were used there was an increase of other hydrocarbon particles in the environment and its chemical reactions with solar rays. Hence the origin of my investigation, the need to breathe well and to breathe clean air.

But things were done in a more complex way. Practicing acupuncture and being familiar with the five elements of Chinese traditional medicine theory, particularly its link with organs, I challenged myself to look for the possibility of such Taoist truth: the relationship of cosmos with a microcosm called human body and its analogy with the space where one lives, that is to say, if there is an equilibrium rupture with nature, the human body will be affected in its health. Another important aspect that allowed me to approach the air was Zazen Rinsai⁶ meditation and trying to develop Tanden, an energy field of the body located under the navel. The technique uses breathing with our diaphragm, expelling the air through the nose and expanding the abdomen seated in a lotus position. I discovered air as a basic element for the body and its life quality and for the possibility to reach longevity, as Taoists put it.

In the Mexican 19th Century there were many answers to the investigation about air and smells which I was interested on. I looked over the press of the years 1840 to 1900 and there it was - the theme about the air with its health complications and implications, including a discussion about the importance of smells and public hygiene. Respiratory illnesses and their mortality rate caught my attention; they made me recall that experience when I arrived to Mexico’s valley thinking that from such experience I could approach the fact that dilutes from north to south of the city: the air. Ecatepec winds which I can see from the flat roof where I live carry toxins from the chemical factories in the zone of Santa Clara Coatitla and San Pedro Xalostoc. At that moment all those health issues and my lifestyle without taking off my sweater made sense.

But air was no subject for historians, it is neither a category nor a circumstance that may be intervened nor rebuilt, neither for psychiatrists nor anthropologists, despite the fact that they are all touched by it and it gives them elements to reconstruct an event or to observe cultural processes built with little oxygen in the brain. For psychiatrists, the most palpable case would be anoxia: lack of oxygen in the brain where the patient presents some paralysis or cerebral lesion. But they do not go in depth in this possible encounter to look for the reason causing it nor do they question the quality of what is being breathed.

So while I was doing zazen I confirmed that when I inhaled, part of the oxygen was left in my stomach and I exhaled carbon dioxide, thus, for hours, it gave me a new relationship with the body and the nature where I live. Meditation has much purpose; like cleaning the head of desires, or energy accumulation in the body by way of breathing, in other words, the air. Hence I thought it was relevant to watch what happens in this city’s process where air is mortal and dangerous for health. I also decided not to take such alarmist ecological posture of saving the world or organizing a cleaning campaign for the city, etcetera; all because I am discovering that the problem is a matter related with the city’s politics and economy. A matter connected to its expansion need and the search for new lifestyle options, changes in the city and feeding process of a voracious population since then, no ending to its movement appetite and to its attraction focus for the dispossessed and deprived. The city as hope for a dignified life or for prolonging years of existence; to exceed 32 years of lifespan average during the Porfiriato period. However the air became the opportunity to put an end to illusions; the polluted air, the rarefied air in the neighborhoods and carbon dioxide abundance. The air constitutes itself in a process related to what is social, where the possibilities of finding a different lecture of an event shaping an epoch’s politics and discussions, and moreover transform life attitudes, comes together leaving on the side policy principles to support the battle for a life with cleaner air.

Movements of wealthy social groups have only one way to see what is happening: move to safer places, odor and pest free or climate change free and its effect on human wastes. I see air as a possibility to understand that human beings not only move with a desire to do things by convenience, but also as a way to escape from smells or epidemics devastating the city.

I consider air category as a time representation in which scientists and intellectuals, since the government of Benito Juarez to Porfirio Diaz, built new languages explaining an event impossible to pigeonhole and not exclusive of one sector of society, thus smells cross the city no matter what house or neighborhood. Constant reference to air smelled defining a correlation with a household or with a body that does not bathe because it has no services or of a house without toilets, just pinpoints social differences and the benefits of a health policy exercised unequally which shows the face of corruption as a life system that makes us breathe the government’s in turn decadent air.

Likewise, air as object of study, may be analyzed in the national press of the 19th Century. Its references are part of the epoch’s social, political and cultural life. It is also a possibility to reenact an approach to reasoning a connection with nature and to put under discussion alternatives about means to change men’s relationship with nature. The air and smells are indicators of a social group’s structure which inhabits specific geographical areas; they are a sensor to change the place of residence and the likelihood to take a concrete decision, despite parallel or peripheral spaces offered by the city. The choice of many inhabitants of the 19th Century honored an olfactory consideration and a fear of epidemics and endemic illnesses.⁷

The concept of air and smell is included in the search for public health problems etiology and multiple links are established about the Mexico City inhabitant’s cause of death. Its appraisal subscribes to a scientific logic conceptualizing movement as a key evolving factor; even clearing up doubts about the scientific point of view that wishes to reach efficiency level advocates, a thought not confined to one sole interpretation of air effects on human beings. Elucidation about an illness is just an explanation according to movements and air currents flowing from one cardinal point to another in a concrete geography or even a nasal problem.

Air can be understood as a concept articulating living and dead beings. It is also a possibility to understand the social process of a time and space conjugating with a society’s demands embedded in modernity’s heart; a modernity that not only instituted the social world of the 1870-1899 years as different to other moments, but also one refusing to drop traditions and eating habits. What must be done to preserve the romantic and modern space? How to avoid air from denouncing what was meant to be hidden from foreigners and the wealthy of the city if the air was always present nauseating, pestilent, with dust, with excrement, with some ozone? An enemy that attacked through smells and ruined meetings, visits, and in the best of cases, became a discreet companion not irritating the nostrils. It is understandable that malign or polluted winds originate when they go across a certain area. The air itself is not malign, that is to say, it may be contaminated carrying calamities or nauseating smells. Its association with ailments and its logical correlation with deaths lead to search in the air for the causal factor of disease and the rarifying of smells in residential environment.

The