Hincapié Melendez y Mayer, Cristobal de (1689-1772)

Chemical, astrological, pharmacological and personal memoranda in Spanish and Latin, with index, some in holograph. Antigua, Guatemala. The title-page, pp. 165-166, 202-203, and 2 leaves after p. 257 are wanting. The pagination is irregular. Pp. 138-257 are in holograph. Pp. 1-35: 'De la definición, divisio, Sugeto, y principio de la chimica.' Pp. 37-41: 'Signa, quae inveniri solent in regnis animali, minerali, et vegetali.' Pp. 42-44: blank. Pp. 45-51: 'Explicacion de las horas Planetarias.' Pp. 52-54: blank. Pp. 55-135: 'Nonnullae receptiones ad plura, ut in eis continetur utiles .... Tam Chimicae, quam Galenicae.' Pp. 133 [irreg.]--191: Miscellaneous chemical and pharmacological receipts [pp. 182-185 on the harvesting of pulque]. Pp. 192-257: Miscellaneous family, local, and ecclesiastical memoranda, most of which are dated, including a description of the earthquake of 1751; a note on the expulsion of the Jesuits; and diagnostic notes on the pulse.

1745-1773

Pp.257 (= 264), 8 ll. 15 x 10.5 cm. Original vellum binding.

Particulars of acquisition not known.

Hincapié received his medical bacchalaureate from the University de San Carlos de Guatemala in 1723, the third to do so since its inauguration in 1681. He was appointed Protomédico general in 1734, and Protomédico extraordinario in 1750 with the task of writing a natural history of Guatemala. He ran a printing press 1739-48. According to Martínez Durán (1964) pp. 247-256, Hincapié was both idle and unlucky; the present MS may well be his only surviving work of any length.

Described in: Robin Price, An Annotated Catalogue of Medical Americana in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1983).