ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the protagonist adopting the guise of a physician, one of a series of professions in which he dabbles and feigns expertise. The Protomedicato, the body regulating medical professionals, was in fact immensely disturbed by the existence of quack doctors in New Spain. Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi came from a modest criollo (American-born Spaniard) background and began his literary career by writing satirical poems that he sold for a few cents; others were published in the Diario de Mexico, a news periodical similar to the Gazeta de Mexico. In 1816, in the midst of the upheaval of Mexico’s independence revolution, Lizardi published El Periquillo Sarniento, Spanish America’s first novel. When the first independence rebellions broke out in 1810, Lizardi was imprisoned on suspicion of supporting the rebels. After his release, Lizardi began publishing fiction, for this genre allowed him to voice ideas impermissible in other forms.
