PhD, History of Health Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, 2014
MA, Philosophy of Science, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2008
BA, Biology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2004

Associate Professor of History, 2020-
Assistant Professor of History, 2014-2020

I am a historian interested in understanding how disputes over scientific and medical knowledge cause social, cultural, and political change in Mexico and in Latin America. Particularly, I am interested in how hegemonic models of medical science, medical institutions and public health policies change as a result of contending understandings of the body, health, and disease. I have published articles in the Journal of the Social History of Medicine and Health (China), História, Ciência, Saúde, Manguinhos, and Medical History as well as book chapters that explore the long and complex history of healing occupations in Mexico, free schools of medicine, obstetrics and nursing as vocational training in Mexico during the 1920s and 30s, and the links between spiritism and homeopathy as healing approaches through the life experience of Francisco I. Madero. His book titled A Revolution in Small Doses: Homeopathy, the Medical Profession, and the State in Mexico, 1893-1942 is under contract with the University of North Carolina Press. His work has been supported by numerous institutions including the National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico (CONACYT), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association for the History of Medicine, and the Institute of the History of Medicine of the Robert Bosch Foundation.

Hernández Berrones, Jethro. “Healers and Doctors: A History of the Healing Professions in Mexico,” in Healthcare in Latin America: History, Society, and Culture edited by David S. Dalton and Douglas J. Weatherford, p. 19-39. University of Florida Press, 2022. [Link]

Hernández Berrones, Jethro. “An Undesirable Past: Free Medical Schools and the First Doctors of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1945,” in Transforming Medical Education: Historical Case Studies of Teaching, Learning, and Belonging in Medicine edited by Delia Gavrus and Susan Lamb, 208-232. Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022. [Link]

Hernández Berrones, Jethro. “Plural Medicine, Medical Expertise, and Public Health in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Mexico” [十九世纪和二十世纪墨西哥的多元医学、医学专业知识和公共卫生]. China Journal of the Social History of Medicine and Health VI, 2 (December 2021), 122-147. [Link]

Hernández Berrones, Jethro. “Mystic of Medicine, Modern Curandero, and “Médico improvisado”: Francisco I. Madero and the Practice of Homeopathy in Rural Mexico at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” In The Gray Zones of Medicine: Healers and History in Latin America edited by Diego Armus and Pablo F. Gómez, 89-107. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021. [Link]

Hernández Berrones, Jethro. “Breaking the Boundaries of Professional Regulation: Medical Licensing and Foreign Influence in the Consolidation of Homeopathy in Mexico.” História, Ciência, Saúde, Manguinhos 26, 4 (2019), 1243-1262. [Link]

Hernández Berrones, Jethro. “Medicine ‘for Mexicans’: Medical Popularization, Commercial Endeavors, and Patients’ Choice in the Mexican Medical Marketplace, 1853-1872.” Medical History, 61, 4, (October, 2017), 568-589. [Link]

2025    “3M: Mapping Midwifery in Mexico (Mapeando Matronas en Mexico),” accessed December 19, 2025, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/688e8fd1d5664f8e965b61365bc00e52 [Storymaps ArcGIS; collaboration with Stephanie Insalaco, Clare Stauber, and Natalia Morales Robles.]

2022    Palmero, Arturo, “Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing of Mexico: Goals, Bylaws, Rules, Study Plans, and Programs,” transcribed and translated by Jethro Hernández Berrones, in HOSLAC: History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean. Advanced Topic: Reproductive Histories ed. Julia E. Rodriguez. Accessed October 10, 2022, https://sites.usnh.edu/hoslac/advanced-topic-reproductive-histories/.

2022    Ceniceros, Tomasa, Clementina Brito, and Natalia Torres Meneses, “Three Clinical Histories (1929-1931) from the Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing of Mexico,” transcribed and translated by Jethro Hernández Berrones, in HOSLAC: History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean. Advanced Topic: Reproductive Histories ed. Julia E. Rodriguez. Accessed October 10, 2022, https://sites.usnh.edu/hoslac/advanced-topic-reproductive-histories/

2022    Perea, Manuel, Manuel Morán Calderón, and Ester Chapa, “Report from the Secretariat of Public Education on the Free School of Obstetrics and Nursing of Mexico (1936),” transcribed and translated by Jethro Hernández Berrones, in HOSLAC: History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean. Advanced Topic: Reproductive Histories ed. Julia E. Rodriguez. Accessed October 10, 2022, https://sites.usnh.edu/hoslac/advanced-topic-reproductive-histories/.

2021    “Williamson County Science Building,” accessed December 19, 2025, https://suspeccoll.southwestern.edu/exhibits/show/wilcoscience [Online exhibit. Supervision and edition of students’ work.]

2020    “History of Science at Southwestern University,” accessed December 19, 2025, https://susciencehistory.southwestern.edu/ [Online exhibit (supervised and edited students’ work).]

Hernández Berrones, Jethro, “A Recipe for the Body: Chiropractic Medicine in Mexico (Part II),” The Recipes Project, December 20, 2019, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/16087.

Hernández Berrones, Jethro, “A Recipe for the Body: Chiropractic Medicine in Mexico (Part I),” The Recipes Project, December 18, 2019, https://recipes.hypotheses.org/16107.

Hernández Berrones, Jethro and Patricia Palma. “Homeopathy in Latin America and Spain: Local Developments and International Networks”, Introduction to the special Dossier “Homeopathy in Latin America and Spain: Local Developments and International Networks” in História, Ciência, Saúde, Manguinhos 26, 4, (2019), 1240-1242.

2018    “A visit to the Battle Creek Sanitarium (1914),” accessed December 19, 2025, https://suspeccoll.southwestern.edu/exhibits/show/battle-creek [supervised and edited students’ work, author of the introduction.]