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Full Description
This collection of essays by historians, historians of science and medicine, and literary and textual scholars—from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Spain—analyzes the achievements of Dr. Francisco Hernández (1515-87) in the history of medicine and science in Europe and the Americas. Celebrated in his own day as one of Spain's leading physicians and naturalists, he is now best remembered for his monumental work on the native plants and materia medica of central Mexico.
Sent to New Spain in 1570 by King Philip II to research and describe the natural history of the region, to assess the medical usefulness of the natural resources, and to gather ethnographic materials for an anthropological history, Hernández was the first trained scientist to undertake scientific work in the New World. For seven years he gathered information throughout the Valley of Mexico, learning Nahuatl, recording local medical customs, studying indigenous medicines, and writing down all his observations. The result was The Natural History of New Spain, written in Latin, which consisted of six folio volumes filled with descriptions of over 3,000 plants previously unknown in Europe (along with descriptions of a much smaller number of animals and minerals) and ten folio volumes of paintings by Mexican artists illustrating the plants and animals he described.
Hernández died before he could publish his Natural History, and the materials were placed in the Escorial, where they were extensively consulted, copied, abstracted, and translated by generations of scientists, medical specialists, and natural philosophers before they were destroyed by fire in 1671. Hernández's work was still regarded as authoritative on a number of New World botanical topics as late as the nineteenth century, and his writings remain in use in popular form in Mexico today.
The sixteen essays in this volume treat the most important aspects of Hernández's experience, including his education, his heterodox beliefs, and the state of medicine in both Spain and New Spain during his era. Other essays show the dissemination of the knowledge Hernández accumulated, including his contributions to European botany and materia medica, his relationship to Spanish Baroque painting, the "globalization" of his work in the eighteenth century, and his place in nineteenth-century debates among Spanish scientists.
Contents
List of illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Editorial methods Chronology Introduction 1. The world of Dr Francisco Hernandez Dora B. Weiner 2. Philip II: imperial obligations and scientific vision Peter O'Malley Pierson Part I. The Intellectual Milieu of Hernandez: 3. The classical tradition in Renaissance Spain and new trends in philology, medicine and materia medica Rafael Chabran 4. Francisco Hernandez, Renaissance man Simon Varey 5. Hernandez in Me;xico: exile and censorship? Carmen Benito-Vessels Part II. Medical Knowledge and Practices in New Spain: 6. Regulation of medical practitioners in the age of Francisco Hernandez John Jay Tepaske 7. Shelter and care for natives and colonists: hospitals in sixteenth-century New Spain Guenter B. Risse 8. Illness, epidemics, and displaced classes in sixteenth-century New Spain Elsa Malvido 9. Anthropology, reason, and the dictates of faith in the Antiquities of Francisco Hernandez David A. Boruchoff Entr'acte Rafael Chabran and Simon Varey Part III. The Dissemination of Hernandez's Knowledge: 10. The reception of American drugs in Europe, 1500-1650 J. Worth Estes 11. The contribution of Hernandez to European botany and materia medica Jose M. Lopez Pinero and Jose Parso Tomas 12. Hernandez in the Netherlands and England Rafael Chabran and Simon Varey 13. Hernandez and Spanish painting in the seventeenth century Mari;a Jose Lopez Terrada 14. Globalizing the Natural History Jaime Vilchis 15. The circulation of the work of Hernandez in nineteenth-century Spain Leoncio Lopez-Ocon Part IV. Postscript: Continuing Traditions of Mexican Medicine: 16. Latino Catholic civilization: patterns of health and demography David Hayes-Bautista 17. The popular legacy of Francisco Hernandez Simon Varey and Rafael Chabran Glossary Index.
