Mexico, 18th century: extracts from scientific writings

Conclución Médica. Es peligroso á los Jovenes acostarse con los viejos. [Followed by:] Obserbaciones sobre el hierro que se encuentra en la sangre de la mayor parte de los animales. A note above the title records the source as J. Galisteo, Diario philosophico, medico, chirurgico [&c.], [Vol. I, nos. 1-8], Madrid, A. Perez de Soto, 1757, a copy of which is in the Wellcome Institute Library. Both pieces are exactly transcribed from núm. 2 of the journal. The first extract [ll. 1r-5r] agrees with J.N. Millin de la Couvrealt (who qualified as physician in Paris 1752-54) that though the ancient practice of living and lying with the young will rejuvenate the old through "affinity of bodies", the practice will, by the same token, only undermine the health of the young. The second extract [ll. 5r-6v] refers to observations made by J.F. Henkel [1679-1744] and experiments made by others on the presence of iron in the ashes of plants and in the red corpuscles of mammals and man; it notes the beneficial effect of the oral administration of iron compounds.

c.1757

6 ll. 20.5 x 16 cm. Bound.

Purchased 1962.

Juan Galisteo and his relation Felix Galisteo y Xiorro each translated a number of important contemporary French medical treatises into Spanish; his Diario stimulated other interest in Mexico.

At Wellcome Collection: see Juan Galisteo y Xiorro's 'Remedio natural para precaverse de los rayos, y de sus funestos efectos...' (Mexico, 1757) (Collection: Request EPB American; Shelfmark: M.58).

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).

Formerly part of the Guerra Collection.