272 AjStistual eeport Smithsonian institution, 1915. 



I have seen much of it brought from New Spain and used for tliese and kindred 

 maladies. * * * H; jg used in tlie following manner : They take the wood 

 and make of it chips as thin as possible and not very large and put them into 

 clear spring water, which must be very good and pure, and they leave them in 

 the water all the time that it lasts for drinking. A half hour after the wood is 

 put in, the water begins to assume a very pale blue color, and the longer it 

 stays the bluer it turns, though the wood is of a white color. Of this water 

 they drink repeatedly and with it they dilute their wine, and it causes very 

 wonderful and manifest eifects without any alteration nor any other requisite 

 than good order and regimen. The Avater has no more taste than if nothing 

 had been put into it, for the wood does not change it at all. Its complexion 

 is hot and dry in the first degree. 



Francisco Hernandez, protomedico of Philip II, who returned to 

 Spain in 1577 after having spent seven j^ears in Mexico studying the 

 resources and useful products of that country, added nothing to 

 Monardes's description of the wood, but gave testimony as to its 

 medicinal virtues, and for the first time described the plant produc- 

 ing the Lignum nephriticuTn of Mexico. He was a physician rather 

 than a naturalist, and many of his descriptions and illustrations of 

 both plants and animals are so crude as to be unrecognizable. Of 

 Lignum nephriticum he gave no illustration. He even expressed his 

 uncertainty regarding its source, stating that the plant had been 

 described to him as a shrub, but that he had seen specimens which 

 exceeded very large trees in size. 



Hernandez's work on the products of ISIexico never appeared as 

 a whole. The portions of it relating to medicine were grouped to- 

 gether and prepared for publication by Nardo Antonio Recchi, 

 physician to Philip II, but owing to lack of funds or for other 

 reasons it did not appear until 1651, 73 years after Hernandez's 

 death. A Spanish translation of Recchi's Latin epitome appeared 

 in Mexico in 1615, the prolix title of which, rendered in English, is 

 as follows: 



Four books of the Nature and Virtues of Plants and Animals which are 

 received in the practice of Medicine in New Spain, and the Method and Correct 

 Preparation required for their administration, with that which Doctor Fran- 

 cisco Hernandez has written in the Latin language. Very useful for all kinds 

 of people who live on farms and in villages where there are no physicians nor 

 Apothecary-shops — Translated, and augmented with many simples, and com- 

 pounds, and many other curative secrets, by Fray Francisco Ximenez, son of the 

 Convent of Santo Domingo of Mexico, Native of the Villa de Luna, Kingdom of 

 Aragon. ... In Mexico, at the house of the Widow of Diego Lopez Davalos, 

 1615. On sale in the shop of Diego Garrido, on the corner of the calle Tacuba, 

 and in the Porteria of Santo Domingo. 



In this work is presented Hernandez's account of Lignum n^phritl- 

 Gum^ including Monardes's description of the wood, its medicinal 

 virtues, and the wonderful blue color of its infusion. 



