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“The good physician is a diagnostician, experienced – a knower of herbs, of stones, of trees, and of roots.”- “The Physician”, Florentine Codex, Book 10: The People.

Working with ‘maticeuac’, a small herb ‘required as a cure by one who has the nose-bleed, who cannot stop it.’ Florentine Codex, Book XI.

A well-known predilection towards human sacrifice has darkened our retrospective portrait of the Aztecs, because we observe them though a distorting veneer of blood. However, there was a far more human and recognizable side to Aztec daily life. Sixteenth century manuscripts of Mexico represent a vast resource of medicinal potential that is still largely underappreciated in Europe. The Leicester School of Pharmacy and Phyto-Research Ltd in Loughborough are working towards deeper understanding of the uses of Aztec herbs.

Cover and first page of the Badianus Manuscript (original in the Vatican Library)

Two

manuscripts – codices – produced in 16th Century Mexico, just after the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec empire, stand out and form the basis of the research.

The Badianus Manuscript (also known as The Codex Barberini).

After the fall of the Aztec Empire, the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco was founded for the Catholic education of the “natives”. The head of the College commissioned a young Aztec man, who had taken on the name of Martin de la Cruz and was an expert in the medicinal use of native plants, to write an herbal textbook that would impress upon Spanish royalty the great progress that was being made by the combination of native experience and Catholic education.

The result, the “Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis”, completed in 1552, was the first herbal and medical textbook to be produced in the New World. It was originally written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, but later translated into Latin by a professor at the college, the Aztec nobleman Juan Badiano. The book is often referred to as the “Badianus Manuscript”. Upon completion, the Badianus Manuscript was sent to the Spanish Court, but later found its way to the Barberini Library in the Vatican. The obscure manuscript once known only as “Codex Barberini, Latin 241” was rediscovered in 1929, and from thereon given the prominence it deserves.
Martin de la Cruz organized his herbal remedies according to body part – beginning, logically enough, with “the curation of the head”, and proceeding via “lousy distemper” and the “rumblings of the abdomen” on towards “signs of approaching death”.

‘Curation of the head’ – the first of Martin de la Cruz’s herbal prescriptions, Badianus Manuscript

The Florentine Codex

Because the manuscript was intended to impress an important Spanish audience, the work was influenced by European medical opinion of the time, which was not so far removed from magic. As a result, another manuscript by Friar Bernardino de Sahagún, who went to Mexico from Spain in 1529, is preferred by those who wish to make a serious study of Aztec herbal medicine. Sahagún, who learned Nahuatl so that he could speak directly to Aztec elders, documented the lives of the Aztecs in the hope of protecting something of their culture from the crushing weight of Spanish occupation. Sahagún’s monumental General History of the Things of New Spain – or the Florentine Codex – is almost an Encyclopaedia Britannica of Aztec Mexico.

The Florentine Codex in its present home, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence

Book 11 (“Earthy Things”) of the Florentine Codex is devoted to everything that lives or occurs in the Earth – from “four-footed forest dwellers” to the metals of the soil. The Aztecs’ devotion to herbal medicine is illustrated by the sheer space devoted to this in the book – the 2nd largest chapter in Earthy Things is given to herbs. (Only “Serpents and other poisonous animals”, are given more space.)

Use of ‘tlatlanquaie’ a shrub used to treat stomach disorders, Florentine Codex Book XI

The Aztec elders who informed Sahagún’s Florentine Codex classified herbs as being hallucinogens (“those which perturb one”), blossoms, “all the different herbs”, and “the medicinal herbs”. The latter alone covers 142 distinct species with botanical descriptions, habitat, and detailed indications.

The entry for ‘cacaloxochitl’, Florentine Codex, Book XI

Hot and cold

Like Europeans of the time, Aztecs believed that plants were “hot” or “cold”, and could be used to correct excess heat or cold in the body. Excess cold in the body was concomitant with the retention of water, and cold/watery illnesses like gout ( coacihuiztli, which literally translates as “the stiffening of the serpent”) would be remedied with the application of a hot herb. Interestingly, many of the hot herbs, such as yauhtli(Tagetes lucida), act as diuretics, removing excess water from the body. Yauhtli was frequently used together with the hot herb iztauhyatl (Artemisia mexicana), the leaves of which were ground in water and drunk. Conversely the root of the Tlalmizquitl (Prosopis juliflora, the mesquite tree) is “required by him whose body is very hot…it is the proper drink to cool his body”.

‘Cococxiuuitl’ – a rather fierce Aztec answer to constipation… Florentine Codex, Book XI

The Aztec pharmacopoeia

This is medicine from the people who gave the world chocolate, and some Aztec remedies sound attractive whether you’ve been taken ill or not. Sweet-smelling flowers – the Aztec word for flower is ‘xochitl’ – were considered to be medicinal. De la Cruz describes an attractive remedy for the relief of fatigue, requiringeloxochitl (Magnolia dealbata), izquixochitl(Bourreria humilis), cacaloxochitl (Plumeria mexicana, a frangipani described as being of “exceeding beauty”) and mecaxochitl (Vanilla planifolia). Together with a few other “sweet summer flowers”, a fragrant water is made which will give “gladiatorial strength to the body” of the patient who bathes in it.
The Aztecs’ love of sweet flowers is illustrated by the contempt they show for those that are not fragrant – poor old Tlalcacaloxochitl (Plumeria acutifolia); it may be a very popular frangipani now, but to the Aztecs it was “useless, without fragrance, it disappoints one”. It’s even worse for Tzompanquauitl (Erythrina americana), the naked coral tree – “nowhere pleasing, nowhere required, nowhere desired – they are sorry things”, which seems a bit harsh.

Using ‘toloa’, a ‘fever medicine’ to relieve gout, Florentine Codex, Book XI

Diarrhoea and wounds occupied a great deal of the Aztec physician’s attention. The latter is unsurprising for a people always at war, but given that the Aztecs had aqueducts for fresh drinking water and separate waste disposal systems, the incidence of diarrhoea seems odd. It has been suggested that this symptom was a response to the high levels of repressed anxiety that must have existed in such a violent society.

Given as treatments for digestive troubles are the cotztomatl (Physalis costomatl – incidentally the Aztec word “tomatl” is the root of our “tomato”); mecaxochitl, “for internal ailments”; memeya (a Euphorbia), good for “one whose abdomen goes resounding”; and the cococxiuitl (Bocconia frutescens), used for constipation. Apparently the latter cannot be eaten or drunk, but must be inserted in, shall we say, the other end of the alimentary canal. Sahagún’s informant warned, “It burns like chilli”. Fortunately he added that “not much is required”, for which the patient must have been grateful.

For the ever-present gout the Aztec herbalist applied picietl (Nicotiana rustica, a wild tobacco) – also good for relieving tiredness.

Respiratory illnesses don’t appear all that frequently in the Aztec literature, but recommended for a chesty cough is the Tlaquequetzal (Achillea millefolium, or yarrow).

The activities of the Aztec warriors kept the healers busy. For “him who is pierced by an arrow”, the leaves and bark of the waxy chapolxiuitl (Pedilanthus pavonis) are applied to the wound, as it a preparation of zayolitzcan (Buddleia americana). The combination of agave sap and salt is a very regular occurrence in wound remedies – agave sap, when mixed with salt, forms a solution that kills bacteria by dehydrating them.

The Nahua

Although the Aztec Empire did not survive the Conquest, the Nahuatl-speaking indigenous people of Mexico still practice a medicine based almost entirely on plants, many of which were also used by their Aztec ancestors. Together with the Aztec manuscripts, the skills of the Mexican healers could help to educate us about new sources of plant-based medicine – indeed, many ethnobotanists are keen to learn from Nahuatl herbalists, as Sahagún was in his day. But care must be taken to perform this sort of research in a way that respects the people and traditions of rural Mexico – so that the good physician would be happy to share his experience with us.

Need a tonic? Try this recipe. Take the sap of the yellow-leafed maguey (Agave atrovirens), and cook it together with some yellow chilli and tomato juice, and ten gourd seeds. Take after eating.
After that you may need some Aztec toothpaste. Take the root of the tlatlauhcapatli (Geranium carolinianum), together with some salt and chilli, and make a paste. Rub the paste into your teeth, if you dare. And for a mouthwash, try an infusion of iztauhyatl (Artemisia mexicana).

It’s cool reading a lot of this, but the gross colonial perspective and misnaming all over the place

All the misnaming with “Aztec” is pretty disappointing.

There is no misnaming. Aztec is the term used by historians and archaeologists to talk about a specific group of people in a specific range of time living in a specific region. If you were to talk only about the Mexica, for example, you would be limiting yourself to those that only lived in Tenochtitlan after it was founded and not Texcoco or Tlacopan, the other two city-states in the Triple Alliance which were founded before Tenochtitlan. You wouldn’t be able to talk about the rest of the Basin of Mexico or anywhere outside the Basin, either. Why? Because Texcoco was Acolhua and Tlacopan was Tepanec, two different culture groups with their own histories, cultures, and traditions from the Mexica just like the rest of the Basin and regions outside the Basin.

Because the Florentine Codex made use of a wide variety of sources, not all of which were Mexica, a different term is needed to talk about the information recorded. The term Aztec encompasses that wide range of people and cultures found within Central Mexico during the Late Postclassic and early colonial period.

That’s the thing, used by “historians and archaeologists”
And who were the ones starting all this “history, archaeology, anthorpology” studies? Europeans. It’s highly disrespectful cause there is no need for their colonized perspective. It’s acutely patronizing as well. Now you might be a person of color that is part of that culture that you’re “studying” that does not excuse you from being biased because you’re still using that colonized epistemology. You’re using their terms. Just like you said it “Aztec” is a term. Yeah a term used primarily by Europeans.

So what’s your solution? What terms should we use? How should we go about studying the past?

This question reminds me of when people get annoyed that you point out something wrong and then they’re like “well then what should we do? What’s your solution??”
Well, it’s hard to change something that is inherently bad. Just like white feminism is not trying to change the heteropatriarchal white supremacist system, but how to integrate to the existing system. To me that’s what you are doing, just keep using the Europeans system to keep “studying” existing cultures. You can’t give solutions to something inherently racist and capitalist.
And to the people saying “well I’m native and I’m not offended” lol good for you. Congrats on talking for millions of people, you are an asshole.

I’m not annoyed, I’m honestly curious. Your views are something I’ve not really encountered before. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask some questions to better understand where you’re coming from.

Is archaeology or the study of history inherently bad? Should we not learn from the past? Especially in regards to learning how people coped with climate change and drought, issues we are currently wrestling with?

Or is archaeology and history only bad in the context of non-European cultures? Should we instead limit our studies to just European cultures that only provide one small, narrow window into the past?

Should we go more extreme and reject all Western thought and science? Do we want to condemn people to death for not being able to use Western medicine? Do we give up our modern conveniences to go back to toiling in the earth (which has its own environmental and health issues)?

But these all are rhetorical questions. You don’t seem to want an answer.

You saying that archeology is THE way to study history, is what’s wrong. For you and Europeans that’s the only way to legitimize historical studies. That’s the “right” way to study the past. What about all the history that natives from the “Americas” had before colonization? Why didn’t they took into account calendars, records, oral histories about the people being in this land for more than 50,000 years? For example, why hasn’t the history and scientific community not cleared their literature on how the Bering straight theory came to be? Because I’m assuming you know that there is no proof whatsoever of that theory right? So are you aware that this year it just came up an article that disproves it?

I know it would be hard to change it, or to somehow be able to use those tools for our own analysis without bias, but that won’t happen cause just like you, people don’t want to be uncomfortable and don’t want to understand.
And it seems like liberal arts is very similar to what happens in science. Apparently the only “scientific name” species can have is the Latin name. A European language. Who decided that? Who decided that it was the correct and scientific way of naming things??? A white man, Carl von Linne.

Anyways, it’s interesting how you have a great amount of access to research and journal data bases to look for the answers for the questions you just asked me. But feel comfortable enough asking people on tumblr to do that physical and emotional labor for you (let me guess, you have dick)

Gatalina, I’m sure that if tlatollotl had access to the names these people groups used for themselves and spoke/could write in their languages, they would use them. But since most of these things are unknowns, the only way they have to reach a wide audience is by using the incorrect names that are easily understood by the general audience. I think it’s a mistake to tell other cultures they can’t learn about yours because of their differences; it will only lead to further loss as piece by piece it’s forgotten.

You are correct. If I had it, I would share it. This blog is about sharing information about the past so that we can all learn from it. I simply choose to focus on the New World rather than other areas.

If anyone has a time machine to tell me the language the shaft tomb people of West Mexico spoke as well as the name they called themselves, I would greatly appreciate it. Same goes for Teotihuacan, too.

Herbal Medicine, Aztec Style