Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects and the Making of the Pill

摘要

Scientists and peasants ? Mexico and contraceptive pills ? For most readers these are social groups and themes that have no connection, but in this book, they do. This is a fascinating account, based on archival research and oral interviews, of the changing relationship between chemists, pharmaceutical companies, politicians and Mexican peasants around the use of a wild yam known as barbasco (Dioscorea mexicana), from which progesterone can be synthesised.