Page 184 - Mediterranea-ricerche storiche, n. 48, aprile 2020flip

184 Roberto Rossi

Table 5. Mexico City Poor House. Annual expenses 1803 (in pesos)
Expenses
Food 17.590
Medicine 1.221
Salaries 3.667
Inmate wages 869
Divine cult 335
Administration 98
Supplies 6.855
Clothing for inmates 285
Tools 1.082
Building maintenance 3.020
Total 35.022
Source: Agn, Historia, vol. 44, Estado del Real Hospicio de Pobres de Mexico en 31 de
diciembre de 1803.

Table 5 highlights the main expenses incurred by Mexico City Poor
House. The largest expense item was food for inmates equal to 50% of
the total, followed by supplies (both for Poor House operation and raw
materials for the workhouse operation) equal to 19% of the total, while
the salaries of service staff of 3,667 pesos were about 10% of the total.
The cost items related to the purchase of drugs and clothing testify to
the institution's original caregiving vocation. Wages paid to inmates of
869 pesos represent only 2.4% of the total expenses faced by Poor
House.
Nutrition constitutes with the work the main element on which the
discipline of bodies is based, which according to Foucault – as seen
for Palermo’s case – is the basis of the biopolitical approach with which
the Enlightenment society tried to model itself by overcoming the
structure of the ancien régime . For this reason, like the prison, the
29
hospital or the factory, even the institutions of education and
imprisonment for the poor combined the necessary work with the
regulation of food to ensure control of the body . Table 6 reports the
30
diet prescribed by the Ordenanzas para el gobierno of the Real Hospicio
de Pobres de la Ciudad de Mexico, approved by Charles III of Spain in
1776 .
31

29 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison cit., pp. 16-17; V. Lemm,
M. Vatter, The Government of Life: Foucault, Biopolitics, and Neoliberalism, Fordham
University Press, New York, 2014, pp. 24-27.
30 M. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic, Routledge, London, 2003, pp. 142-143.
31 Agn, Bandos, vol. 10, Exp. 18.

Mediterranea - ricerche storiche - Anno XVII - Aprile 2020
ISSN 1824-3010 (stampa) ISSN 1828-230X (online)