Cuban fharmacists in the figh for Independence: An emancipatory bioethics

Abstract

The participation of Cuban pharmacists in the wars of independence has been narrated as a patriotic feat, yet without a bioethical-philosophical interpretation of the pharmaceutical logic of the era. This study sought to analyze the pharmaceutical logic of the Cuban colonial period and the pharmacists' participation in the wars of independence as an expression of an emancipatory bioethics—viewed through the lens of the category of "pathogenic reason." A qualitative historical study was conducted using the historical-logical method, documentary analysis of primary and secondary sources (including José Martí’s campaign diary, Carlos J. Finlay’s 1881 report, and the work of Juan Tomás Roig), and a critical-hermeneutic interpretation framed by the concept of pathogenic reason within the 1510–1898 period. The study reconstructs the colonial pharmaceutical roots, the integration of pharmacists into the Mambí Military Medical Corps, and key figures in the field. Positivist logic—exemplified by the initial rejection of Finlay’s discovery—acted as a form of cognitive blindness; reliance on imported drugs represented a "pathogenic scarcity"; and the herbal pharmacopeia emerged as a creative means of overcoming these limitations.