ABSTRACT This article examines the early history of the Hospital de San Hipólito in Mexico City, which delivered charitable care and basic medical services to a vulnerable category of colonial subjects known as “pobres dementes,” or mad paupers. In spite of the vast and robust literature on the history of madness and its institutions, surprisingly little is known about this institution, which, founded in 1567, holds a claim to being the first hospital of the Americas to specialize in the care and custody of the mentally disturbed. The article draws on archival sources and biographies of the hospital's founder to reconstruct San Hipólito's origins, activities, patient population, and interior life. It asks how the hospital registered the transfer and adaptation of institutions, ideas, and practices from the Old World to the New. It argues, ultimately, that San Hipólito served as an imperfect tool of colonial governance—and that it did so less through exerting control over a multiracial, recalcitrant, and marginal group of colonial society than through the reproduction of charitable practices and ideas that lent legitimacy to Catholicism and Hapsburg models of paternal authority.

中文翻译：

---

照顾痴呆症患者：1567-1700 年，墨西哥城的疯狂、殖民和圣伊波利托医院

摘要 本文考察了墨西哥城圣伊波利托医院的早期历史，该医院为被称为“pobres dementes”或疯狂乞丐的弱势殖民主体类别提供慈善护理和基本医疗服务。尽管有大量关于疯狂历史及其机构的文献，但令人惊讶的是，人们对这家机构知之甚少，该机构成立于 1567 年，号称是美洲第一家专门护理和监护精神病的医院。精神错乱的。文章利用医院创始人的档案资料和传记来重建圣伊波利托的起源、活动、患者群体和内部生活。它询问医院如何登记制度、思想和实践从旧世界到新世界的转移和适应。它主张，