Journal - International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

SOME NOTES ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF ARABIAN MEDICINE IN
NEW SPAIN
We have to remember that the medieval therapeutic
methods were purges, cupping-glasses, draughts,
plasters, cauterizations and various infusions. Then,
in those times was used the called soliman water, to
cauterize a sweet sublimate of mercury diluted in
water, insipid and which first known prescription is
founded in Summa perfectionis writed by, Geber,
Arabian alchemist whose work was known by
Avicenna., and too, in New Spain. Another Islamic
knowledge used by doctors in New Spain was the
bezoar stone, effective antidote.
In New Spain, Enrico Martínez, astronomer, but no
physician, wrote Repertorio de los tiempos, y historia
natural desta Nueva España in 1606, and in the fourth
chapter he treats about the applicability of astrology,
and in his book he mentions Avicenna and his Canon.
By the sea, sometimes arrived to American coasts
ships with boxes full of books; some works were forbidden
by the Holy Inquisition, but some medical doctors
had got some of them. In a list of the year 1576,
Alonso Losa, a bookseller, received two copies of
Exposición sobre las preparaciones de Mesue, published
in 1569 by Antonio de Aguilera from Alcalá de
Henares, in which the author explains the book of Juan
Mesue, the Arabian physician whose works were used
till the end of the XVIII century. Mesue is named with
profusion in Juan de Barrios’ book, Verdadera medicina,
cirugía y astrología, published in 1607.
There is other incunabula in the National Library
of Mexico, that is a latin translation of the works of
Serapione, Liber serapionis agregatus in medicines
simplicibus translaton Symonis Ianuensis interprete
Abraan iudeo tortuosiensi de arabico in latinum
inquit Serapion, published in 1473 at Parma by
Antonio Zarotum.
In 1648 Juan de Correa, an anatomist in the Real
y Pontificia Universidad de México wrote Tratado de
la qualidad manifiesta, que el mercurio tiene… , in
which he treated about the life into the mines, and the
poisoning with sulphur. To do this book, he read
Avicenna and Geber.
In XVI century New Spain, the texts for the
Faculty of Medicine were the books of Hippocrates,
Galen, Ali Abbas, Hunain Ibn Ishaq, Avicenna,
JISHIM 2004, 3
Rolando NERI-VELA
Rhazes, Averroes and Mesue. In the third year of
studies the students had to study the ninth book of Ad
almanzorem, from Rhazes.
Later, when medievalism was substituted for the
modernism in the Spanish universities, they continued
with the lectures from Avicenna (2, 3).
To finish these notes, I will mention some ideas
from the book Verdadera Medicina, Astrología y
Cirugía, from Juan de Barrios, published in Mexico
in 1606.
Juan de Barrios arrived to New Spain in 1590,
after attending the universities of Alcalá, Salamanca
and Valencia, and his work is, probably, the most
important monument of New Spanish medicine, writing
in dialogue form. In the chapter number 17 of the
third treatise of his book, de Barrios illustrates about
the headache and hemicrania. saying that Avicenna
thought that this disease was so terrible and ferocious
that the joins of the head looked dilate, and it opened
the head, and it was so tyrannical that sometimes it
killed (4). When de Barrios treats about cataracts, in
chapter 28, mentioning Avicenna, says that to heal it
the physician must use warm and dry air, the patient
must not drink wine, only cinnamon or honey water,
and they can eat hen, kid, and they must not drink
milk nor eat fish (4).
So, I had expose briefly the influence and the utility
of Arabian medicine in America’s medicine,
pointing out some of the authors that had more
authority on physicians during the three centuries
Colonial Mexico.
REFERENCES
1. Weckmann L. La herencia medieval de México, II. El
Colegio de México. México, 1984: 669-687.
2. Francisco FC. La Facultad de Medicina según el Archivo de
la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México. Imprenta
Universitaria. México, 1953.
3. Francisco F. Historia de la medicina en México desde la
época de los indios hasta la presente, vol. 2. México.
Oficina Tipográfica de la Secretaría de Fomento. 1886: 95.
4. De Barrios J. Verdadera Medicina, Astrología y Cirugía.
Imprenta de Fernando Balli. México, 1607: 68r, 72r.
Biblioteca Nacional de México, Fondo Reservado
Clasificación R 610.953F AVI.I
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