Aztec medicine
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Aztec medicine concerns the body of knowledge, belief and ritual surrounding human health and sickness, as observed among the Nahuatl-speaking peoples in the Aztec realm of central Mexico during the pre- and post-conquest eras. A variety of indigenous Nahua and Novohispanic written works survive from the conquest and later colonial periods that describe aspects of the Aztec system and practice of medicine and its remedies, incantations, practical administration, and cultural underpinnings. Elements of traditional medicinal practices and beliefs are still found among modern-day Nahua communities, often intermixed with European or other later influences.
As with many other Mesoamerican cultures, the Aztec system recognised three main causes of illness and injuries—supernatural causes involving the displeasure of the gods or excess and imbalance with the supernatural and natural worlds, magical causes involving malevolent curses and sorcerers (a tlacatecolotl in Nahuatl), and natural or practical causes. Establishing a treatment for any given ailment depended first upon determining the nature of its cause.
Disease had an ambivalent or dualistic aspect, representing an imbalanced state but at the same time its presence could indicate the existence of a communion with the supernatural world.
The Aztecs knew of and used an extensive inventory consisting of hundreds of different medicinal herbs and plants.
[edit] References
- Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel (2007). Handbook to Life in the Aztec World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-533083-0. OCLC 81150666.
- Barrios, Juan de (1607). Verdadera medicina, cirugía y astrologia en tres libros dividida. Mexico: Fernando Balli. OCLC 14314843. (Spanish)
- Fields, Sherry Lee (2008) (online publication, originally presented as the author's PhD dissertation [University of California-Davis, 2003]). Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico. Gutenberg-e series (e-book ed.). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-14240-3. OCLC 227274438. http://www.gutenberg-e.org/fields/index.html.
- Lockhart, James (1992). The Nahuas After the Conquest: A Social and Cultural History of the Indians of Central Mexico, Sixteenth Through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1927-6. OCLC 24283718.
- McCaa, Robert (Winter 1995). "Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophe in Mexico" (PDF online reproduction, UCSD). Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) 25 (3): pp.397–431. ISSN 0022-1953. OCLC 1799976. http://usmex.ucsd.edu/assets/022/10126.pdf.
- Miller, Mary; and Karl Taube (1993). The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya: An Illustrated Dictionary of Mesoamerican Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-05068-6. OCLC 27667317.
- Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. (1990). Aztec Medicine, Health, and Nutrition. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-1562-9. OCLC 20798977.
- Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando (1984) [1629]. Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions and Customs That Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain, 1629. Civilization of the American Indian series, no. 164. translated & edited by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (original reproduction and translation of: Tratado de las supersticiones y costumbres gentílicas que oy viven entre los indios naturales desta Nueva España, first English ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1832-6. OCLC 10046127. (Nahuatl) (English)
- Smith, Michael E. (2003). The Aztecs (2nd edn. ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-23015-7. OCLC 48579073.
- Van Tuerenhout, Dirk R. (2005). The Aztecs: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO's understanding ancient civilizations series. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1-57607-921-X. OCLC 57641467.
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