ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in this book. The book describes the despair caused by the epidemics reflects the unstable living conditions of most of Peru's population, the deficiencies of the sanitation infrastructure and the lack of medical resources that often cannot help to prevent the avoidable deaths of a great number of children and adults. It improves our understanding of health and disease, and reveals the relations of opposition and tolerance that took place between modern medicine and its domestic and traditional counterpart. However, epidemics present excellent opportunities for institutional changes and improvements in living conditions and lifestyles. In a country with many pending tasks, epidemic diseases seem to have been the only occasion when public health caught the interest of the Peruvian government and international organizations. However, with the hindsight of almost a century, the epidemics show the rise and fall of the importance that the Peruvian State accorded to public health.
