Medical Cultures of the Early Modern Spanish Empire (New Hispanisms: Cultural and Literary Studies)

As the Spanish empire grew, cultural ideas and practices related to sickness and health, sex, monstrosity and death came into contact and conflict. Old ideas took root in new soil, others were stamped out, and new cultures arose. Early modern Spain was a global empire in which a startling variety of medical cultures came into contact, and occasionally conflict, with one another. Spanish soldiers, ambassadors, missionaries, sailors, and emigrants of all sorts carried with them to the farthest reaches of the monarchy their own ideas about sickness and health. These ideas were, in turn, influenced by local cultures. This volume tells the story of encounters among medical cultures in the early modern Spanish empire. The twelve chapters draw upon a wide variety of sources, ranging from drama, poetry, and sermons to broadsheets, travel accounts, chronicles, and Inquisitorial documents; and it surveys a tremendous regional scope, from Mexico, to the Canary Islands, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Germany. Together, these essays propose a new interpretation of the circulation, reception, appropriation, and elaboration of ideas and practices related to sickness and health, sex, monstrosity, and death, in a historical moment marked by continuous cross-pollination among institutions and populations with a decided stake in the functioning and control of the human body. Ultimately, the volume discloses how medical cultures provided demographic, analytical, and even geographic tools that constituted a particular kind of map of knowledge and practice, upon which were plotted: the local utilities of pharmacological discoveries; cures for social unrest or decline; spaces for political and institutional struggle; and evolving understandings of monstrousness and normativity. Medical Cultures of the Early Modern Spanish Empire puts the history of early modern Spanish medicine on a new footing in the English-speaking world As The Spanish Empire Grew, Cultural Ideas And Practices Related To Sickness And Health, Sex, Monstrosity And Death Came Into Contact And Conflict. Old Ideas Took Root In New Soil, Others Were Stamped Out, And New Cultures Arose. This Collection Examines The Dynamic Context In Which Medical Cultures Circulated To Propose New Interpretations Of The Reception, Appropriation, And Elaboration Of Medical Cultures In The Vast Territories Controlled By The Spanish Monarchy. Introduction : Medical Cultures Of The Early Modern Spanish Empire / John Slater, José Pardo-tomás, And Maríaluz López-terrada -- The Culture Of Peyote : Between Divination And Disease In Early Modern New Spain / Angélica Morales Sarabia -- Antiguamente Vivían Más Sanos Que Ahora : Explanations Of Native Mortality In The Relaciones Geográficas De Indias / José Pardo-tomás -- The Blood Of The Dragon : Alchemy And Natural History In Nicolás Monardes's Historia Medicinal / Ralph Bauer -- From Where They Are Now To Whence They Came From : News About Health And Disease In New Spain (1550-1615) / Mauricio Sánchez-menchero -- Literary Anthropologies And Pedro González, The Wild Man Of Tenerife / M.a. Katritzky -- The Medical Cultures Of The Spaniards Of Italy : Scientific Communication, Learned Practices And Medicine In The Correspondence Of Juan Páez De Castro (1545-1552) / Elisa Andretta -- Offspring Of The Mind : Childbirth And Its Perils In Early Modern Spanish Literature / Enrique García Santo-tomás -- Sallow-faced Girl, Either It's Love Or You've Been Eating Clay : The Representation Of Illness In The Golden Age Theater / Maríaluz López-terrada -- The Dramatic Culture Of Astrological Medicine In Early Modern Spain / Tayra M.c. Lanuza Navarro -- The Theological Drama Of Chemical Medicine In Early Modern Spain / John Slater -- Epilogue: The Difference That Was Spain, The Difference That Spain Made / William Eamon. Edited By John Slater, Maríaluz López-terrada, And José Pardo-tomás. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Cover 1 Contents 8 List of Figures and Tables 10 List of Contributors 12 Acknowledgements 16 Introduction 18 Part 1: Spain and the New World of Medical Cultures 36 1 The Culture of Peyote: Between Divination and Disease in Early Modern New Spain 38 2 “Antiguamente vivían más sanos que ahora”: Explanations of Native Mortality in the Relaciones Geográficas de Indias 58 3 The Blood of the Dragon: Alchemy and Natural History in Nicolás Monardes’s Historia medicinal 84 Part 2: Itineraries of Spanish Medicine 106 4 “From Where They Are Now to Whence They Came From” 108 5 Literary Anthropologies and Pedro González, the “Wild Man” of Tenerife 124 6 The Medical Cultures of “the Spaniards of Italy” 146 Part 3: Textual Cultures in Conflict, Competition, and Circulation 164 7 “Offspring of the Mind”: Childbirth and Its Perils in Early Modern Spanish Literature 166 8 “Sallow-Faced Girl, Either It’s Love or You’ve Been Eating Clay”: The Representation of Illness in Golden Age Theater 184 9 The Dramatic Culture of Astrological Medicine in Early Modern Spain 206 10 The Theological Drama of Chymical Medicine in Early Modern Spain 230 Epilogue: The Difference That Made Spain, the Difference That Spain Made 248 Bibliography 262 Index 306