The Calvimacken Journal of Infectious Boring- chatter, and other forgotten magazines

Abstract

The author, after recalling El enteropatógeno, a magazine supposedly written by bacteria that appeared at the Bacteriological Institute of Chile, presents the background and development of a satirical newspaper of limited circulation, which between 1972 and 1989 delighted the doctors of the Luis Calvo Mackenna Hospital, selecting five texts that denounced a confusing classification of viral hepatitis, as well as the abuse of some diagnostic and treatment methods. Other magazines later circulated in that hospital, which in part perpetuated the satire, including also Calvomackenna, Medicina y Cirugía del Niño, a serious scientific journal that had a short life of five years, as well as Little Daniel, a page written in verse that appeared for a decade on the Pediatrics Department bulletin board.