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| Cover from 1578 spanish edition of "Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales", by Cristóbal Acosta. |
Cristobal Acosta (Portuguese origin but settled down in Burgos at the end of his life) was a Doctor and Physician considered a pioneer in the study of plants and its use in pharmacology. In 1568 he travelled to remote East Indies to serve as personal physician for the Viceroy and started to collect botanical specimens from various parts of India. In 1578 he returned to Spain (Burgos) and commissioned a treatise with all material collected in India during 10 years, named "Treatise of the drugs and medicines of the East Indies". In the treatise he says he was brought to India by his desire to see "the diversity of plants God has created for human health and provide to Occidental Medicine new remedies from distant lands, observed directly on site". Cristobal Acosta provides a very accurate description of each Plant, name and different use provided by local population, most favorable regions to find it, characteristics, and even the value (translated to local goods).
The codex is written in ancient spanish and online hosted by google books. I tried to find references -page by page- to drug plants but most of the references I could find were oriented to plants like cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, peppermint, saffron... I imagine this was the "commercial" side of the Book. During 16th Century, these Plants (spices) were considered as "foreign exchange" and even more valuables that gold...
Cristobal Acosta bio from wikipedia here.
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| Cinnamon Plant. |
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| Black pepper tree |
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| Nutmeg tree |
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| Peppermint |
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| Saffron |
