Nicolás Monardes

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Nicolás Monardes
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Nicolás Bautista Monardes Alfaro (Seville, c. 1508 – ibid., October 10, 1588) was a prominent Spanish physician and botanist.

He should not be confused with his father, Juan Bautista Monardes, who was likewise a physician and a native of Seville.

Biography

Tile panel dedicated to Nicolás Monardes on Calle Sierpes in Seville.

On his father's side he descended from the physician and humanist Juan Bautista Monardes, and on his mother's side from a family of Sevillian merchants, the Alfaros. His ancestor Luis Fernández de Alfaro was Accountant of the Casa de Contratación, a money changer and merchant, and around 1503 had taken part in the Carrera de Indias as a ship's master.[1] He must have lost his father early, since his mother, Leonor de Alfaro, remarried, to the apothecary Juan López de Pastrana. He studied Medicine at Alcalá de Henares, where he obtained the degree of bachelor in 1533, being trained in the humanism of Antonio de Nebrija, and he received his doctorate from the University of Seville (1547). In that city he practiced the profession of physician with great success and assembled an important herbarium, also growing various American plants in his own garden, and he also engaged in various commercial ventures, especially those related to the trade in medicines and the slave trade. He maintained a close friendship with the leading humanists and reformers of the spirituality of his time, such as Cristóbal Núñez and Juan de Quirós (godparents of his daughter Isabel), which explains why he was ordained a priest after being widowed.[2]

Monardes published a large number of books of great importance. The Diálogo llamado pharmacodilosis (1536) is not his, but rather his father's, Juan Bautista Monardes. Like him, he discussed the importance of Greek and Arabic in medicine in De Secanda Vena in pleuriti Inter Grecos et Arabes Concordia (1539), applying it to the controversy of his time over the appropriateness of bloodletting applied to the so-called mal de costado or pleurisy, a contentious subject at the time between physicians who followed humanism and those of the Arabizing tendency. De Rosa et partibus eius (1540) was a treatise on roses and citrus fruits; he also studied snow (Tratado de la nieve y del beber frío, 1571) and iron (Dialogo de las grandezas del hierro y de sus virtudes medicinales, 1574), and wrote a Tratado de la Piedra Bezaar y de la yerua escuerçonera.

His most significant and best-known work was Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, published in three parts under various titles (in 1565, 1569, and completed in 1574, and reprinted without changes in 1580). It was translated into Latin by Clusius (Charles de l'Écluse, 1526–1609) and into English by John Frampton. It also had great influence on other works such as Tesoro de Medicinas (Mexico, 1672), written in American territory by Gregorio López (1542–1596), a native of Madrid.[3]

Monardes set out to study and experiment with the products and medicines of the New World in order to explore their pharmacological properties, taking advantage of the fact that Seville was the port of entry from the West Indies into the Old World. To this end he grew American plants in his garden and described for the first time many species such as blessed thistle, sabadilla, jalap, sassafras, guaiacum, pepper, Indies cinnamon, tobacco, balsam of Tolu, etc., among others that had been known and described imperfectly or incorrectly. He familiarized Europeans with such momentous plants as the pineapple, the peanut, maize, the sweet potato, coca and sarsaparilla. His contribution to pharmacognosy was highly relevant, as shown by the enormous interest aroused by his work: in little more than one hundred years his works reached forty-two editions in six languages.

He was the first known author to report and describe the phenomenon of fluorescence, then unknown, in his book Historia Medicinal (Seville, 1565), where he describes the strange behavior of certain infusions of Lignum nephriticum.[4][5]

List of works by Monardes

De simplicibus medicamentis (1574)
  • 1539: De Secanda Vena in pleuriti Inter Grecos et Arabes Concordia.
  • 1540: De Rosa et partibus eius.
  • 1569: Dos libros, el uno que trata de todas las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven al uso de la medicina, y el otro que trata de la piedra bezaar, y de la yerva escuerçonera. Seville: Hernando Diaz.
  • 1571: Segunda parte del libro des las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven al uso de la medicina; donde se trata del tabaco, y de la sassafras, y del carlo sancto, y de otras muchas yervas y plantas, simientes, y licores que agora nuevamente han venido de aqulellas partes, de grandes virtudes y maravillosos effectos. Seville: Alonso Escrivano.
  • 1571: Libro que trata de la nieve, y de sus propiedades: y del modo que se ha de tener, en el bever enfriado cō ella: y de los otros modos que hay de enfriar. Seville: Alonso Escrivano.
  • 1574: Primera, segunda y tercera partes de la historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven en medicina; Tratado de la piedra bezaar, y dela yerva escuerçonera; Diálogo de las grandezas del hierro, y de sus virtudes medicinales.
  • 1580: Reprint of the 1574 publication. Seville: Fernando Díaz.
  • 1580: Historia Medicinal. Seville. For Samuel Fastlicht.

See also

References

  1. ↑ In Mena García, M. C., Sevilla y las flotas de indias, la gran armada de Castilla del oro, 1513 - 1514, Seville (1999).
  2. ↑ Quirós, Juan de (2004). "Poesía latina y Cristopatía (La Pasión de Cristo). Introducción, edición, traducción e índices de Joaquín Pascual Barea" (in español). Cádiz: Universidad de Cádiz: 34–35. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ↑ Cáceres-Lorenzo, Teresa (2023-11-29). "Léxico indígena en la designación de la materia médica novohispana en el Tesoro de las Medicinas (México, 1672)" (PDF). Hipogrifo (in español). doi:10.13035/H.2023.11.02.29. Retrieved 2024-01-03.
  4. ↑ "Molecular Fluorescence, principles and applications". Bernard Valeur. Wiley-VCH. Weinheim, 2002. ISBN 3-527-29919-X
  5. ↑ "Early History of Solution Fluorescence: The Lignum nephriticum of Nicolás Monardes" A. Acuña and F. Amat-Guerri. FLUORESCENCE OF SUPERMOLECULES, POLYMERS, AND NANOSYSTEMS Springer Series on Fluorescence, 2008, Volume 4, Part A, 3-20, DOI: 10.1007/4243_2007_006

Bibliography

  • Boxer, C. R. (1963), Two pioneers of tropical medicine: Garcia d'Orta and Nicolás Monardes, London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library.
  • Guerra, Francisco (1961), Nicolás Bautista Monardes, su vida y su obra, ca. 1493-1588, Mexico.
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