Francisco Hernández de Toledo

Francisco Hernández de Toledo (La Puebla de Montalbán, Toledo 1514 – Madrid 28 January 1587) was a naturalist and court physician to the King of Spain.

Hernández was among the first wave of Spanish Renaissance physicians practicing according to the revived principles formulated by Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna. Hernández studied medicine and botany at the University of Alcalá and may have traveled between cities in Spain as was common among physicians seeking to make a name for themselves. Moving from Seville with his wife and children, Hernández served briefly in the Hospital y Monasterio de Guadalupe and then at the Hospital Mendoza in Toledo, where he gained prominence for his studies of medicinal botany and publication of a Castilian translation of a work on natural history by Pliny the Elder.

In 1567 Hernández became a personal physician to King Philip II. In 1571 Hernández was ordered to embark on the first scientific mission in the New World, a study of the region's medicinal plants. Accompanied by his son Juan, he traveled for 7 years collecting and classifying specimens, interviewing the indigenous people through translators and conducting medical studies in Mexico and the Philippines. He was assisted by three indigenous painters (baptized, Antón, Baltazar Elías and Pedro Vázquez respectively), who prepared illustrations. During the 1576 yellow fever ("cocoliztle") epidemic Hernández performed autopsies in the Hospital Real de San José de los Naturales in collaboration with surgeon Alonso López de Hinojosos and physician Juan de la Fuente.

Publications

Parts of Francisco Hernández' extensive descriptions of his findings were published in a translated collection entitled "Plantas y Animales de la Nueva Espana, y sus virtudes por Francisco Hernandez, y de Latin en Romance por Fr. Francisco Ximenez" (Mexico, 1615) also cited as "Cuatro libros de la naturaleza y virtudes de las plantas y animales que están recibidos en uso de medicina en la Nueva España" published by Francisco Jiménez.

A heavily redacted compendium in the original Latin was later published as "Rerum medicarum Novae Hispaniae thesaurus" (Rome, 1628) by collector, Federico Ceci.

Another impression was put out by Juan Terencio and Linceo Fabio Columna as "Nova plantarum, animalium et mineralium mexicanorum historia a Francisco Hernández in indis primum compilata, de inde a Nardo Antonio Reccho in volumen digesta." (Rome: Vital Mascardi, 1648).

Some of Hernández' original manuscripts are housed in the library of the Escorial, but many were lost in the fire of July 17, 1671. A new compilation by physician Casimiro Gómez Ortega, based on additional material found in the Colegio Imperial de los Jesuitas de Madrid was entitled "Francisci Hernandi, medici atque historici Philippi II, hispan et indiar. Regis, et totius novi orbis archiatri. Opera, cum edita, tum medita, ad autobiographi fidem et jusu regio." (1790).

ources

*Alfredo de Micheli-Serra. Médicos y medicina en la Nueva España del Siglo XVI. "Gaceta Médica de México." May/June 2001, vol.137, no.3 (accessed 16 November 2005 available on the World Wide Web: [http://scielo-mx.bvs.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0016-38132001000300010&lng=es&nrm=iso] . ISSN 0016-3813
* Fundació Catalunya-Amèrica Sant Jeroni de la Murtra revista RE (Edición castellano), "El preguntador" Época 5. número 45. pp. 57-60. julio de 1999 [http://www.catalunya-america.org/espanol/preguntador.htm] accessed November 16, 2005.