Secretos de chirurgia

The Spanish author of this medical text arrived in Honduras in 1550 with 77 other passengers. Within eight days, 70 of the company were dead, most likely of dysentery. Arias de Benavides settled in Guatemala, where he practiced medicine for four years before moving on to Mexico. He became a specialist in the treatment of syphilis and devotes much of the book to that subject. This was the first book to present the indigenous medicine of Mexico, offering individual chapters on the use of maguey, mechoacan, sarsaparilla, native balsam, and a wealth of other drugs. This copy was part of the first large Americana purchase by John Carter Brown in 1846, and was originally part of the collection of Henri Ternaux-Compans.