In the years immediately after the fall of Tenochtitlan, there were very few doctors, in the European sense, in these lands. If there were no doctors, much less medication. What existed, and was alive, was the knowledge of the indigenous peoples, who, as a result of a careful cumulative task, had remedies and treatments for numerous ailments.
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It was magic, it was knowledge. An amalgam that we see today as a peculiar phenomenon, but that 500 years ago constituted the predominant knowledge in these lands regarding health, disease and how to treat various ailments. It was a part of the universe into which Cortés and his men entered, not without anxiety, because many times the ills of the body were attributed to supernatural causes, which foreigners identified with their concept of witchcraft. However, little by little, the former soldiers realized that herbs, roots and decoctions did have concrete effects and did contribute to healing.
The Franciscan friars, who recovered the memory and knowledge of the natives, warned with more wit and better will. This decision to recognize and preserve the culture of these lands allowed, little by little, all that information to be integrated into the medical knowledge of the time. Physicians, travelers, and merchants were not the few who gradually absorbed this information. The fact that Dr. Francisco Hernández was sent to New Spain by King Felipe II, to collect whatever data there was about these remedies, speaks of the fact that many verbal, anecdotal, informal, or chronically rescued versions had gained ground across the sea. Hernández, in fact, managed to identify more than 3 thousand herbs with medicinal use.
THE DISEASE BETWEEN THE ORIGINATING PEOPLES. There was a strong magical component in the idea of disease and in the mechanisms used to cure it. The ticitl name by which those who were dedicated to restoring health were identified had an essence of benevolent sorcerers. The disease could come from an act of damaging magic, from the loss of vital breath, or from the so-called “airs of disease”, dark influences that, especially at night, roamed around human beings.
Since the disease was a foreign element, it was very natural that those who distanced it had appropriate names: the curanderas had very explicit names in this regard: tetlacuicuilique, “Those that remove the stones from the body; tetlanocuilanque, “Those that extract worms from teeth”, teixoculanque, “Those that remove worms from the eyes”.
What is still a popular expression today, such as “it gave you an air”, or “a bad air”, is an idea of disease that comes from pre-Hispanic times. In his General History of Things of New Spain, Brother Bernardino de Sahagún explained this belief: “the Indians had an imagination that certain diseases, which seem to be cold, came from the mountains or that those mountains had power to Heal her, and those to whom these diseases occurred, vowed to celebrate and offer to this or that mountain to whom they were closest or with whom they had the most devotion … the diseases for which they made these vows were the drop of hands or the feet, or any other part of the body, and also the crippling of some member or the whole body … “
Yes: deities and supernatural beings could be the cause of diseases: Tláloc was blamed for skin diseases, leprosy, dropsy and ulcers; if the children became paralyzed or convulsed, it was the work of the chihuapipiltin, “Goddesses that walk together through the air, and appear when they want to see what they live on earth, and boys and girls begin with diseases such as perlesia disease (pleurisy).”
In some diseases there was a strong moral component: those who had “frowned upon” love relationships could be punished by Tlazoltéotl, a deity associated with carnal love. The tlazolmiquiztli, “death caused by love,” fell victim, because the patient fell into attitudes that Europeans identified with melancholy, and evil was overcome by purification rites. Xipe Totec, the skinned god, was held responsible for the ills in his eyes.
PREHISPANIC MEDICINE. Despite this strong magical-religious component, the indigenous peoples had an enormous wealth of information, almost all herbal, which did allow them to heal diseases. Stones and animals also had properties. For example, midwives could accelerate labor by diluting a piece of opossum tail in water and having the mother deliver it. “Madness” was also treated: if the patient suffered restlessness and delirium, surely they would administer a mixture of the juice of a plant called tlatlalmelicpatli, or “fumigate” it with tissue and ocelotl (ocelot) excrement mixed with resins. Depressive madmen were infused with a herb they called malinalli, mixed with reed marrow and another herb called tlaolli.
The obsidian, finely ground, was applied to the wounds: “thrown on very recent sores, heals them very soon”. Sahagún claimed that there was a stone called eztetl, who had the virtue “to staunch the blood that comes out of the noses”.
The pre-Hispanic peoples also knew therapeutic procedures that were known to the Spanish. Bleeds, baths, purgatives, ointments, and poultices were administered; many of them contained various plants. They could also be administered as infusions.
Pehispanic herbalism was vast. Unfortunately, not all the names of the plants that were used and that were identified by the Franciscans or by the doctor Hernández, have been “translated” into the modern nomenclature. But they had laxatives, emetic, diuretics, “sweat”, like the well-known cempoalxóchitl, our popular flower of the dead. If it is true that every medicine can have positive or fatal effects, this same flower, prepared in atole and in significant amounts, could have hallucinogenic effects.
There were plants used to combat the most common ills: plants to contain cases of miscarriage, and they had abortifacient substances; cocoa beans and tobacco leaves were used to contain diarrhea. Cardiovascular diseases were treated with plants called yoyomatli and xochipatli. The parasites were eradicated with an herb they called tlalchichioaxíhuitl, or a mixture of toloatzin leaves with ocote resin.
In the long run, the Spanish were deeply impressed with this herbalist universe, from which they could see clear and concrete results. They certainly fought the religious and magical aspect of the indigenous medical practice, but little by little they understood the effective part of that repertoire. Over the years, this knowledge was also integrated into the identity of those born in these lands. Still today, part of that knowledge is still alive.
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