The Second Interrupted Revolution. Juan Guzmán and the case of foot-and-mouth disease. A German photographer in the middle of the war in the Mexican countryside.
Through the photographs of foot-and-mouth disease in Mexico, taken by the photojournalist Hans Gütman/ Juan Guzmán in 1947, this terrible pandemic and the inhumane handling it was given are analyzed. The study of this series of images, from the perspective of visual anthropology, reveals interesting contradictions in the development version of the Mexican government, which for the same reason published them in the magazine Mañana up to 5 years after the photographs were taken. Said “official” version defined foot-and-mouth disease as “an evil ghost” that took over the national cattle, “reason why it had to be exterminated” in order to lead Mexico “into economic and social progress”, a version that is tendentious and contrary to reality of the process revealed by these images.