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"The next morning many Indians came there and they brought five sick people who were crippled and very ill, and they came in search of Castillo to cure them and each of the sick people offered their bow and arrows, and he received them, and at sunset He crossed them and commended them to God Our Lord and we all begged him in the best way we could to send them health, because he saw that there was no other way for those people to help us and get us out of such a miserable life; and he did it so mercifully, "That when morning came, everyone woke up as good and healthy, and left as strong as if no one had ever been ill." (Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca)
Pre-Columbian America was a mosaic of ethnic groups, popular customs and cultural heritage. The civilizations that flourished were the Mayans, the Aztecs and the Incas, mainly.
Through archaeological finds and ceramic figurines, found from Mexico to Peru, we reveal the existence of a magical and supernatural medicine exercised by priests, who practiced rituals accompanied by drinks, to which plants with psychedelic effects were often added. .
Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-Sahagún. Spain; 1499, Tlatelolco Mexico) was a Franciscan missionary author of several works in Nahutl and Spanish, considered today among the most valuable documents for the reconstruction of the history of ancient Mexico before the arrival of the Spanish.
Among his writings, the General History of the Things of New Spain stands out, a true ethnographic monument, composed of twelve books, which hardly has comparable precedents in any language. According to Fray Jerónimo de Mendieta, Franciscan and author of the Indiana Ecclesiastical History, he was the greatest expert in Nahuatl.
His original name was Bernardo de Rivera, Ribera or Ribeira. Around 1520 he moved to Salamanca, then a center of Renaissance radiation in Spain. There he learned Latin, history, philosophy and theology.
Towards the middle of the decade, he decided to enter the Franciscan order, and was probably ordained around 1527. In 1529 he would leave for the newly conquered New Spain (Mexico) on a mission with another twenty friars, led by Fray Antonio de Ciudad Rodrigo.
Bernardino de Sahún describes in his General History of the Things of New Spain, 132 medicinal plants (written in Nahutl with Spanish translation).
The drink most used by the indigenous people was pulque, which was the fermented juice of agave. The American agave was called metl by the Aztecs, who considered it a sacred and national plant.
Pulque was considered by the Aztecs as the milk of the goddess Mayahmel, who was represented with pulque in her hand (the Spanish called it maguey).
Pulque (maguey) was a slightly alcoholic drink, to which the indigenous people added honey and vegetable drugs.
Also called Codex Badiano or Codex Barberini (1552), work of the indigenous physician Martín de la Cruz, written in Nahuatl who later translated it into Latin by Juan Badiano.
It is the oldest medical book in America, the first treated book that describes the healing properties of American plants used by Mexicans. It is a kind of herbalist where each plant is named by its Aztec name and represented by a colored drawing, where its therapeutic indications are specified for each one.
Another classic work on New World medicinal plants is Rerum medicarum Novae Hispaniae thesaurus seu plantarum, animalium, mexicanarum historia, written by Francisco Hernandez between 1571 and 1576 and published after his death in Rome in 1651.
The History of the Plants of New Spain was written by Francisco Hernández after having carried out the first exploration in Mexican territory from 1571 to 1576.
Under the appointment of Protomedic of the New World and with the task of King Philip II to describe the plants, animals and minerals useful to the Spanish crown, Francisco Hernández toured part of the territory, describing more than 3,000 species of plants and 500 of animals.
Francisco Hernández was Philip II's protophysician and historian in the West Indies and studied Aztec medicine and local therapeutic methods. In his work he describes, with the Aztec name, hundreds of medicinal plants.
The active medicinal plants used by the Indians at this time and unknown in Europe were Peru balsam, Tolú balsam, West Indian balsam (Liquidambar styranciflua), Copal balsam (Copaifera officinalis), guaiac (Guaiacum officinalis ), saffron, used by the indigenous people against fever, sarsaparilla (smilax officiales H.B.K.), advised by Pedro Cieza de León to treat syphilis; jalapa (Ipomoeapuraga Hayne) and false jalapa (Mirabilis jalapa); cayenne pepper (Capsicum frutescens) described by Chanco, Christopher Columbus' doctor; allspice (Pimienta officinalis), cocoa (Theobroma), vanilla (vanilla planifolia), corn (zea mays) and peanut (Arachis hypogea), potato (solamun tuberosum), described by Zárae in 1555.
His contemporaries were none other than Andrés Vesalio, Juanelo Turriano, Juan de Herrera and Benito Arias Montano. With them he discussed, commented, looked for books and asked their advice. He tended the botanical garden of the Guadalupe hospitals, observing how they could heal and vivify.
Hernández translated and made extensive and accurate scientific comments in Spanish on one of the most influential works on the knowledge of nature in the European 16th century; the Natural History of Pliny and Theophrastus.
The results of the work are impressive, a priori we owe Francisco Hernández the Western discovery of pineapple, corn, cocoa, grenadines, annatto, chili or chili, datura estramonium, passion fruit, tobacco and peyote.
Hernández identified the birds in their Nahuatl name from which it is possible to classify them. His work, which began as an expedition to search for new "medicinal" remedies, ended up being the world's most important natural history encyclopedia on the Americas. Quite a legacy, which today, we would define as unique. And it had unique consequences.
In El Escorial, the "distillation" laboratory was built attached to the Escorial pharmacy, equipped with magnificent equipment that those plants were waiting for.
In his History of the Order of San Jerónimo, back in 1605, José de Sigüenza explains how it was built at the personal initiative of Philip II and speaks with admiration of the devices installed in its eleven rooms: "With which a thousand tests of the nature and that with the force of the art of fire and other means and instruments they discover its entrails and secrets". The largest distillation laboratory in the world.
His knowledge and understanding made it very clear to him that fauna and flora had to be united in his study of the discovery of that new continent.
Along with its impressive herbalist, descriptions of 400 animals including mammals, oviparous animals, insects, reptiles and 35 minerals used in medicine would travel in the galleons' holds.
In some cases, even the living evidence itself traveled by sea. In the best Darwin style on the Beagle, with the only difference that paradoxically the British one was the one that would go down in history and this would occur almost three centuries later.
The first description of the Hernández volumes was by José de Sigüenza, librarian of the Escorial of Felipe II, in his History of the Order of San Gerónimo written in 1605.
In it he makes it very clear to us the value of the work of the Toledo native, its terrible vividness and topicality:
"There is a curiosity of great esteem, worthy of the spirit and greatness of the founder of this bookstore. This is the story of all the animals and plants that have been seen in the West Indies, with their same native colors. The same color as the tree and the grass has, in root, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, fruits. The one that has the alligator, the spider, the snake, the snake, the rabbit, the dog and fish with its scales; the most beautiful feathers of so many differences of birds, the feet and the beak... something that has the utmost delight and variety to look at, and no small fruit for those whose job it is to consider nature, and what God has created for man's medicine, and the works of nature. nature so diverse and admirable. The same color as the tree or the grass. The alligator, the snake or the beautiful lights of the birds... Without a doubt the colors of the naturalist had to cause a great impact at the time. Read it in the today is a delight".
Due to his modern approaches, Hernández's influence on botany was enormous and, above all, the value of being the author of the first scientific expedition in modern history.
Botanical figures from later years cited his work profusely and reproduced in their own texts many fragments written by the Spanish naturalist.
In this sense, we can cite the writings of figures such as Ray, Jussieu, Tournefort and even Linnaeus. Finally, one of the most notable aspects of Hernand's impressive work is having been responsible for the introduction of some important plant remedies into European pharmacy.
There were three plants that had action on the nervous system and were used by the indigenous people: coca, tobacco and hallucinogens.
Aztec art has left us ceramic statuettes that reproduce the absorption effects of these substances "like statuettes with two heads on a single body."
The indigenous people knew the paralyzing action of the bark of plants, belonging to the genus Strycnos: they poisoned the arrows with an active poison "curare". The therapeutic application of curare has been carried out in the 20th century.
