An annotated catalogue of medical Americana in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine : books and printed documents, 1557-1821, from Latin America and the Caribbean Islands and manuscripts from the Americas, 1575-1927 / by Robin Price.

  • Price, Robin
Date:
1983
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: An annotated catalogue of medical Americana in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine : books and printed documents, 1557-1821, from Latin America and the Caribbean Islands and manuscripts from the Americas, 1575-1927 / by Robin Price. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    facsimile edition of thejournal issued by the Banco de la República, Bogotá, in 7 vols, in 1978. The author, priest and member of the Franciscan Observants or Friars Minor, discusses the endemic goitre of the Santa Fé region in the light of contemporary theory, and concludes that relative cold is its cause. He advises a dietary and purging regimen to balance the system, accompanied by specific internal and topical treatments. His aetiology, derived from European sources, which discusses the place of climate, water and mountains in the condition comes close to modern knowledge of the rôle of iodine deficiency in the disease. The first paper on goitre in this area was published by José Celestino Mutis, in the same periodical, 1794 (no. 137), pp. 669-676. LOPEZ RUIZ, Sebastián José Modo de sacar cortezas de los arboles de quina, para que sea apreciable por su virtud, y eficacia medicinal ; la que se pagará á tres pesos cada arroba, estando perfectamente seca al sol [&c.]. 1 1. fol. [Santa Fé de Bogotá : ?Imprenta Real de A. Espinosa de los Monteros. ?I779]. Rúbrica and signature of the author on the verso, at whose establishment the bark was dried and sold. His Relación de los méritos y servicios, Madrid, 1794, a copy of which is in the Wellcome Institute Library, refers to his Instrucción muy sencilla y lacónica, perhaps the present item, which he printed at his own cost [probably in 1779] to distribute free to householders and inhabitants of the areas where the trees were to be found. López Ruiz, the eccentric son of an upper-class family of the City of Panamá, acquired wide learning in philosophy and the humanities in that university, and in jurisprudence and the natural sciences in the University of San Marcos of Lima. His claim to have discovered cinchona near Bogotá in 1774 initiated a quarrel with Mutis over the priority of discovery. The subject is fully covered by Steele (1964), pp. 198-203. MUTIS, José Celestino [1732-1808] Prospecto de los nombres y propiedades de las quinas oficinales. 1 1. 4to. [Santa Fé de Bogotá: s.n. 1793].