¹See the entry ‘Medical ethics, history of Europe’, particularly the sections ‘Ancient and medieval’ (by Darrel W Amundsen) and ‘Renaissance and Enlightenment’ (by Harold J Cook) as well as the bibliography referred to there, in Stephen G Post (ed.), Encyclopedia of bioethics, 3rd ed., 5 vols, New York, Macmillan Reference USA, 2004, vol. 3, pp. 1555–83, 1583–9.

²See, for example, Julio Caro Baroja, Los judíos en la España moderna y contemporánea, 2nd ed., 3 vols, Madrid, Istmo, 1978, vol. 2, pp. 200–4. On the world of Iberian converso practitioners, see, among others, Caro Baroja, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 175–204, 205–25; Diego Gracia Guillén, ‘Judaism, medicine, and the inquisitorial mind in sixteenth-century Spain’, in Angel Alcalá (ed.), The Spanish Inquisition and the inquisitorial mind, New York, Columbia University Press, 1987, pp. 375–400; Yosef Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism: the story of Isaac Orobio de Castro, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1989; David B Ruderman, ‘The community of converso physicians: race, medicine, and the shaping of a cultural identity’, in idem, Jewish thought and scientific discovery in early modern Europe, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1995, pp. 273–309; Jon Arrizabalaga, ‘The world of Iberian converso practitioners, from Lluís Alcanyís to Isaac Cardoso’, in Víctor Navarro Brotóns and William Eamon (eds), Más allá de la leyenda negra: España y la revolución científica / Beyond the black legend: Spain and the scientific revolution, Valencia, Instituto de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentación López Piñero (Universitat de València—CSIC), 2007, pp. 307–22.

³Henrique Jorge Henríques, Retrato del perfecto médico, Salamanca, en casa de Juan y Andrés Renaut impressores, 1595. For an overview of Henríques’ biography and his Retrato, see Jon Arrizabalaga, ‘The ideal medical practitioner in Counter-Reformation Castile: the perception of the converso physician Henrique Jorge Henríques (c.1555–1622)’, in Samuel S Kottek and Luis García-Ballester (eds), Medicine and medical ethics in medieval and early modern Spain: an intercultural approach, Jerusalem, Magnes Press, 1996, pp. 61–91. Henríques’ Retrato has been dealt with by, among others, Caro Baroja, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 201–2; Gracia Guillén, op. cit., note 2 above, passim; Winfried Schleiner, Medical ethics in the Renaissance, Washington, DC, Georgetown University Press, 1995, passim; David Linden, ‘The perfect physician: 16th century perspectives from the Iberian peninsula’, Sudhoffs Archiv, 2000, 84: 222–31, on pp. 224–5.

⁴Rodrigo de Castro, Medicus-politicus, sive de officiis medico-politicis tractatus, quatuor distinctus libris: in quibus non solum bonorum medicorum mores ac virtutes exprimuntur, malorum vero fraudes et imposturae deteguntur..., Hamburg, ex Bibliopolio Frobeniano, 1614.

⁵On Rodrigo de Castro’s life and works, see Antonio Hernández Morejón, Historia bibliográfica de la medicina española, 7 vols, Madrid, Imp. de la Vda. De Jordán—Imp. de la Calle de San Vicente, 1842–1852 (facsimile reprint: New York and London, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 107–8; Anastasio Chinchilla, Anales históricos de la medicina en general y biográfico-bibliográficos de la española en particular, 4 vols, Valencia, Imp. López y Cía—Imp. Mateu y Cervera, 1841–1846 (facsimile reprint: New York and London, Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 82–4; Moritz Kayserling, ‘Rodrigo de Castro’, in Isidore Singer (ed.), The Jewish encyclopedia, 12 vols, New York, Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906, vol. 3, pp. 611–12; Harry Friedenwald, ‘The doctors De Castro’, in idem, The Jews and medicine: essays, 2 vols, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1944, vol. 2, pp. 448–59; Hans-Joachim Schoeps, ‘Die Arztfamilie de Castro. Ein Beitrag zur Medizingeschichte des Barock’, in Joseph Schumacher (ed.), Mɛληματα. Festschrift für Werner Leibbrand zum siebzigsten Geburstag, Mannheim, Mannheimer Grossdruckerei, 1967, pp. 123–8; Caro Baroja, op. cit., note 2 above, vol. 2, pp. 179, 187, 194–5, 202–3. More recently, De Castro’s Medicus-politicus has been discussed by Gracia Guillén, op. cit., note 2 above, passim, in the context of the rise of political medicine; by Schleiner, op. cit., note 3 above, passim, in the context of medical ethics in Renaissance Europe; and by Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 294–9, as a part of the early modern Jewish quest for cultural identity.

⁶In the classic The Jewish contribution to civilisation (London, Macmillan, 1938), Cecil Roth introduced De Castro as “one of the fathers of medical jurisprudence”, the author “of one of the first books on the subject”, and claimed that “his De universa mulierum morborum medicina (1603) … is generally regarded as having laid the foundations of gynaecology as we know it to-day” (p. 202). More recently, Schleiner (op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 68, 72–3, 86) has uncritically and anachronistically introduced Rodrigo de Castro, David de Pomis and other early modern Jewish practitioners of the diaspora as champions of “natural religion” and of humanitarian and secularized medicine, allegedly in contrast to the sectarian positions held by their contemporary colleagues both Catholic and Protestant. For a recent discussion on the spread of the attribution to Jews of a “conspicuous involvement in and propensity for scientific achievement”, see Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 1–13.

⁷For recent useful approaches to the early modern European medical world and its peculiarities, see among others, Harold J Cook, Trials of an ordinary doctor: Joannes Groenevelt in seventeenth-century London, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994; Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The medical world of early modern France, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997; Andrew Wear, Knowledge and practice in English medicine, 1550–1680, Cambridge University Press, 2000; Mary Lindemann, Medicine and society in early modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

⁸On this question see, for example, Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, De la corte española al gueto italiano: marranismo y judaísmo en la España del siglo XVII: el caso de Isaac Cardoso, Madrid, Turner, 1989, pp. 21–42 (chapter 1); Yosef Kaplan, Judíos nuevos en Amsterdam: estudios sobre la historia social e intelectual del judaísmo sefardí en el siglo XVII, Barcelona, Gedisa, 1996, particularly pp. 23–77. The two chapters included in these pages were first published by Kaplan as ‘Political concepts in the world of the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam during the seventeenth century: the problem of exclusion and the boundaries of self-identity’, in Yosef Kaplan, Henry Méchoulan and Richard H Popkin (eds), Menasseh Ben Israel and his world, Leiden, Brill, 1989, pp. 45–62; and Yosef Kaplan,‘The Portuguese community in 17th century Amsterdam and the Ashkenazi world’, in Jozeph Michman (ed.), Dutch Jewish History Vol. II. 4th Symposium on the history of the Jews in the Netherlands entitled “Interactions and interrelations”: selected papers…, Jerusalem, Institute for Research on Dutch Jewry, The Hebrew University, 1989, pp. 23–45.

⁹See, for example, David C Lindberg and Richard S Westman (eds), Reappraisals of the scientific revolution,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990; H Floris Cohen, The scientific revolution: a historiographical inquiry, Chicago and London, Chicago University Press, 1994; Margaret J Osler (ed.), Rethinking the scientific revolution, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000; Navarro Brotóns and Eamon (eds), op. cit., note 2 above.

¹⁰Yerushalmi, op. cit., note 8 above, pp. 23–4.

¹¹Richard L Kagan, Students and society in early modern Spain, Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974, pp. 90–2; Henry Kamen, Inquisition and society in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985, pp. 221–31.

¹²His birth date appears rather uncertain, namely 1546, according to Maximiano Lemos (Zacuto Lusitano: a sua vida e a sua obra, Porto, E Tavares Martins, 1909, p. 230), Harry Friedenwald (op. cit., note 5 above, p. 449), and the Wellcome Library catalogue of printed books; before 1547, according to Hernández Morejón, as he claimed that De Castro had died on 20 January 1627 aged more than eighty (op. cit., note 5 above, p. 108); 1550, according to The Jewish encyclopedia (op. cit., note 5 above, p. 611), and Ruderman (op. cit., note 2 above, p. 295); and 1541 according to the National Library of Medicine catalogue of printed books.

¹³“Fessanus Rex aegrotans a Lusitaniae Rege Joanne tertio, cum quo bellum gerebat crudelissimum, medicum postulavit, qui meum avunculum, cui idem, quod mihi nomen fuit, eo liberalissime misit, hoc adjungens, ut omnem adhiberet diligentiam ac sedulitatem in curatione barbari Regis, cujus ope liberatus fuit a gravissimo morbo.” See Rodrigo de Castro, Medicus-politicus, Hamburg, ex Bibliopolio Frobeniano, 1662, liber III, caput 15, p. 167.

¹⁴The Jewish encyclopedia, op. cit., note 5 above, vol. 12, p. 394.

¹⁵De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, pp. 68, 82. Andrés Alcázar (1490–1585) was professor of surgery at Salamanca University from 1567, when this chair was created. Juan Bravo de Piedrahita (1517–1610) held successively the chairs of Articella (1560–1563) and of Avicenna (1563–1597). De Castro wrongly referred to Juan Bravo de Piedrahita as “Pedro Bravo”.

¹⁶“Roderici a Castro, Lusitani, Philos.[ophiae] ac Medic.[inae] Doct.[oris] per Europam notissimi, Medicus-Politicus, sive de officiis medico-politicis tractatus …”. There is no mention of De Castro among the medical students in sixteenth-century Salamanca inventoried by Teresa Santander, Escolares médicos en Salamanca (siglo XVI), Salamanca, Europa Artes Gráficas, 1984.

¹⁷De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, pp. 194–5: “Idem Philippus ac reliqui Hispaniae Lusitaniaeque Reges plurimam pecuniam impenderunt medicamentis convehendis ex utraque India ac undique terrarum, et medicinalibus viridariis excolendis. In quem finem voluerunt, ut ego quamvis indignus in Indiam Orientalem navigarem oblato stipendio amplo, et honoribus non contemnendis, quibus hoc etiam additum erat, ut neque Proregi, neque cuipiam alii addictus essem, quin immo ipse teneretur, ex omnibus Orientis provinciis curare, ad me deferri simplicia, quae ibi crescunt, ego vero illa conferrem cum iis, de quibus Graeci et Arabes scripserunt, et ad eorum capita reducerem, edito de iisdem commentario. Quod utique munus tametsi honorificum, et universo orbi utilissimum, justis de causis detrectavi, sperans fore, ut alius, qui me et eruditione et experientia superet, idipsum aliquando perficiat.”

¹⁸According to Lemos (note 12 above, pp. 225, 230–3), De Castro’s professional activities at Antwerp are evidenced by many references in his works to Belgian women’s customs and illnesses.

¹⁹Between 1585 and 1589 Antwerp lost almost half its population, which declined from 80,000 to 42,000 inhabitants (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia XIII, 15th ed., 1990, p. 866).

²⁰Rodrigo de Castro, Tractatus brevis de natura et causis pestis, quae hoc anno MDXCVI Hamburgensem civitatem affligit …, Hamburg, Jacobus Lucius Junior, 1596. This work was addressed to the Hamburg Senate.

²¹Contrary to anachronistic interpretations about how most physicians usually fled from medieval and early modern cities and towns during plague epidemics, it should be taken into account that only those contracted by the political authorities were then legally and morally obliged to stay. See Patrick Wallis, ‘Plagues, morality and the place of medicine in early modern England’, English Historical Review, 2006, 121 (490): 1–24.

²²Instances of plague treatises intended for similar purposes are those written by Lluís Alcanyís (c.1440–1506) and Andrés Laguna (c.1511–1559). See Jon Arrizabalaga (ed.), Lluís Alcanyís. Regiment preservatiu e curatiu de la pestilència, Barcelona, Edicions Barcino, 2008; Miguel Ángel González Manjarrés, Andrés Laguna y el humanismo médico: estudio filológico, Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y León, 2000, pp. 110–2.

²³Rodrigo de Castro, De universa mulierum medicina, 2 vols, Hamburg and Cologne, Officina Frobeniana at Philip de Ohr’s printing press, 1603–1604. The first volume (De natura mulierum) consists of four books where he successively dealt with the anatomy of the uterus and breasts; semen and menses; coitus, conception and pregnancy; and labour and breastfeeding. The second volume (De morbis mulierum) focuses on women’s diseases, including those that were then considered as peculiar to widows and virgins, those related to pregnancy and pregnant women, and the ones that women in childbirth and wet-nurses may suffer from. Also instrumental in consolidating his career in Hamburg appears to have been De Castro’s success in treating the illness of the wife of Balthasar de Alefeld, governor of Felsenburg, since this gained him the favour of this influential family. See Lemos, op. cit., note 12 above, pp. 231–2.

²⁴De Castro, op. cit., note 4 above.

²⁵See Lemos, op. cit., note 12 above, p. 232.

²⁶In 1612 this community consisted of 125 adults, among whom there were ten merchants, two physicians, and three artisans. See Heinrich Graetz, Bella Löwy and Philipp Block, 6 vols, History of the Jews, Philadelphia, The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949, vol. 4, p. 388.

²⁷They were Benedict/Baruch Nahmias (1597–1684) and Andreas/Daniel de Castro (born in 1599; medical degree taken at Padua in 1633), who would become physicians to Queen Christina of Sweden (1645) and to King Christian IV of Denmark, respectively. See Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 299–308.

²⁸Rodrigo de Castro, Tratado de Herem, em o qual a serca desta materia …cited also under the title Trattado da Halissa, en o qual sen a desta materia dialogi xxv, this apparently lost work is mentioned by Moritz Kayserling, Biblioteca española-portugueza-judaica: dictionnaire bibliographique des auteurs juifs, Strasbourg, Trubner, 1890 (facsimile ed.: Madrid, Ollero & Ramos, 2000), pp. 36–7. On the herem among Iberian Jews, see Enrique Cantera Montenegro, Aspectos de la vida cotidiana de los judíos en la España medieval, Madrid, UNED, 1998, p. 192. If this lost treatise by De Castro were a work concerning cases and circumstances in which herem could be imposed, its author might have been a rabbi or, at least, somebody with authority in the Jewish community of Hamburg. Yet the fact that in numerous Jewish communities of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe there was a strong reaction against an abusive imposition of herem, also allows us to hypothesize that this work could well have argued this. Indeed, because of De Castro’s peculiar identity of being a “new Jew” and his rationalist medical profile, he might have been tempted, like other Iberian crypto-Jews of the western European Sephardi diaspora who reverted to Judaism, to make theological and philosophical proposals that could very often have been perceived as heterodox. With regard to this, see Kaplan, op. cit., note 2 above, on the illustrative case of Isaac Orobio de Castro.

²⁹Friedenwald, op. cit., note 5 above, p. 451. Yet, Lemos (op. cit., note 12 above, pp. 225, 232) held that De Castro was still alive in 1629, allegedly because of a letter he wrote to Abraham Zacuto on 16 July that year.

³⁰Not even Rodrigo de Castro was allowed to bequeath his house to any heir. See Graetz, et al., op. cit., note 26 above, vol. 4, pp. 685–8. For a general overview of Jewish physicians in early modern Germany, see John M Efron, Medicine and the German Jews: a history, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 34–63, 280–9.

³¹De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, signat. A1r.

³²Ibid., signats. A2v–A3r, p. 1. Curiously enough, about twenty years before, Henrique Jorge Henríques had made similar claims in favour of his Retrato del médico perfecto. See Henríques, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 9–10.

³³“Amplissimis, clarissimis, et sapientissimis viris, domino Vincentio Mollero J.U.L. peritissimo, et domino Hieronymo Vogelero, florentissimae reipublicae Hamburgensis Consulibus vigilantissimis, Rodericus a Castro, philosophus ac doctor medicus, S.P.D ….”. See De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, signat. A2r.

³⁴“Altera hujus instituti causa fuit, ut posteriores medici vobis acceptas referant eas leges, quae sub vestro patrocinio publici juris factae sunt.” Ibid., signat. A3r.

³⁵Ibid., pp. 1–53. Book I includes 12 chapters.

³⁶Ibid., pp. 53–209. Book II includes 15 chapters.

³⁷Ibid., pp. 110–205. Book III includes 24 chapters.

³⁸Ibid., pp. 205–77. Book IV includes 16 chapters.

³⁹“Medicus est vir bonus medicinae peritus”. Ibid., p. 3.

⁴⁰“Id vero, quod glossator ait, medicos non esse majoris precii quam obstetrices, omnino repugnat verbis ipsius decreti, quae sunt majoris auctoritatis, ubi medici nobiliores fuerant declarati, quam jureconsulti, quam nobilitatem glossator ipse [André Tiraqueau], insertis illis verbis, voluit attenuare : In lege, vero, si duobus vel tribus, medici non aestimantur ut obstetrices, sed favore quodam obstetricibus conceditur eadem portio, quae medicis, quod potius in honorem medicorum, quam in eorundem ignonimiam cedit, siquidem etiam mulierculis, quia medicinam exercere videntur, eadem portio attribuitur, quae medicis fuerat concessa, et idem jus cum professoribus artium liberalium, quae omnia ad medici dignitatem pertinent; quippe qui non solum sint honorandi, verum etiam eorundem ministri atque ministrae obstetrices, qua ratione principum servis domini privilegia communicantur.” Ibid., p. 46.

⁴¹Ibid., pp. 154, 163, 198, 203, 205.

⁴²Ibid., pp. 128–9, 149–50, 154, 202–3, 249 (patients); 155, 163, 165–6 (attendants or mediators); 205–11, 216, 223 (agents or victims of fascination and love-philtres). De Castro also referred to the custom of Japanese women (sic) (“in India Orientali Japonicae mulieres”) being burned with their husbands when the latter died. Ibid., pp. 247–8.

⁴³“… olim medendi scientia sapientiae pars habebatur, ut et morborum curatio et rerum naturalium moraliumque contemplatio sub iisdem autoribus nata sit …”. Ibid., p. 3.

⁴⁴“Est autem sciendum quod medici merito utplurimum malorum extant morum. Tum quia ex vili stipite, et sterili originem contraxerunt, intumescentes demum, et contumeliosi facti cum fuerint aliqualiter incrassati. Tum etiam quia medicinae scientia, et simpliciter curativa maxime Scorpioni attributa est, et Marti, quorum proprietates in malum tendentes iam sunt tactae. Conservativa vero magis Tauro, et Veneri, hos in omnem trinam incitantibus luxuriam, istos tamen qui stellariter pravorum morum existunt propter virtutem Scorpionis, et Martis in eis dominantem ob attributionis virtutem perfectos reperio medicos.” See Pietro d’Abano, Conciliator controversia rum, quae inter philosophos et medicos versantur, Venice, apud Iuntas, 1565 (facsimile reprint: Padua, Antenore, 1985), fol. 10vb (dif. VII). Interestingly enough, Huarte de San Juan attributed to Jewish physicians a similar moral ambiguity. On this issue, see Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 285–93.

⁴⁵De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, pp. 5–8.

⁴⁶“[Medicinae definitio] … ars cum ratione, et experientia faciendae conservandaeque sanitatis …”. Ibid., p. 4.

⁴⁷Ibid., pp. 9–14.

⁴⁸A useful overview of early modern medical reactions to Paracelsians has been provided for the French case by Brockliss and Jones, op. cit., note 7 above, pp. 119–28.

⁴⁹De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, pp. 14–19.

⁵⁰For this accusation against Paracelsus, see, for example, the influential work by Thomas Erastus (1523–1583), Disputationum de medicina nova Paracelsi. Pars I: In qua quae de remediis superstitiosis et magicis curationibus prodidit praecipue examinantur, Basel, Petrus Pernae, 1572, p. 140. Cf. Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: an introduction to philosophical medicine in the era of the Renaissance, 2nd ed., Basel, Karger, 1982, p. 329.

⁵¹De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, p. 19.

⁵²Ibid., pp. 20–9.

⁵³Ibid., pp. 29–34.

⁵⁴Ibid., pp. 34–7.

⁵⁵Ibid., pp. 74–7.

⁵⁶“Est enim Hippocrates magnus profecto adeo maximus medicinae parens, et in quo artificii totius semina insunt sed cujus animi sensa, praeclara illa quidem, verum concisa nimis brevitate, at aetate illa fortasse usitata litteris tradita fuerunt; huius itaque magni viri aphorismi, prognostica, phrophetica et epidemiorum libri, ac de morbis acutis non solum perlegendi saepius sunt, sed memoriae commendandi. Galenus vero is est quem nocturna diuturnaque manu versare oportet, ejus opera accurate evolvere, ex quibus justam concipere medicinae notitiam possis.” Ibid., pp. 84–5.

⁵⁷“Similiter etiam architectonicen esse medicinam quandam, et imperatricem, non solum quod multos dicto oboedientes habeat, verum etiam ac longe quidem magis, quod architecti, regisque atque imperatoris optimi more rectam secum rerum suarum validamque, atque inconcussam rationem constituens, menteque eam atque intellectu stabiliter firmans, leges ipsa sibi medicas dicit, easdemque ad regionum, locorum, aetatum, sexuum, habituum, consuetudinum, conditionum omnium diversitatem moderetur; quandoquidem ea artium inprimis dos sit, vel omnium nobilissima, ut ratione nitentes et stabili intellectus habitu firmatae, dare se in usum omnem queant, quidquid tandem obveniat novum, insolitum, dissuetum. Ita antecessores nostri Hippocrates, Galenus, Avicenna ad exemplar artis medicae, quam mente animoque puram atque exactam servabant, leges medicas, quas hodie habemus, litteris mandarunt, a nobis ad peculiares rerum occurrentium usus accommodandas.” Ibid., p. 48.

⁵⁸Ibid., p. 85.

⁵⁹Ibid., pp. 84–5.

⁶⁰“Est igitur praeposterum judicium eorum, qui Arabes et inde ductas familias tenebris opprimere conantur; quamvis enim tempore iniquo floruerunt, quo desertae ac sepultae meliores disciplinae penitus jacebant, digna tamen luce aeternaque memoria nobis reliquerunt. Non igitur ita unius Galeni auctoritati simus addicti, ut ejus verba jurare videamur, quod faciunt ii, qui omnes Arabes ac barbaros contemnunt; siquidem veris philosophis ac medicis ea libertas esse debeat, ut apum more optima quaeque eligant. Perinde enim est, quis dixerit, sive Graecus, sive Arabs, sive Hebraeus, sive Latinus fuerit, modo verum dixerit; non enim religionem docent, sed medicinam. Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, magis amica veritas; et exillaudato solo laudatae fruges saepenumero proveniunt. Non desunt viri praestantes qui ordinem in scribendo, quem Galenum nullum servare constat, Averroi tribuant, et Avicennae, quorum incultam dictionem animadvertens Fernelius, superiori seculo eorum nomina obscurare decrevit, edito egregio atque eleganti opere, quo universam fere medicinam complexus est, absolute quidem, si De crisibus et diebus decretoriis tractationes ex Galeno aut aliunde suppleas; ac morborum curationes ex Raza vel Avicenna, et si novas aliquot opiniones, quas interdum inserit, dligenter examines.” Ibid., pp. 85–6.

⁶¹“Quoniam autem nostra et majorum aetate viri exstiterunt praeclara sapientia conspicui, qui artem medicam, quisque in suo genere mirifice excoluerunt, amplificarunt, et suis commentariis illustrarunt; eorum etiam scripta evolvere medicus interdum debet, ita tamen, ut non quoslibet, sed eos duntaxat, in quorum operibus probata doctrina genium, et in scribendo dexteritas elucent, ad quae quatuor potissimum requiruntur, materia, res, nervus, et phrasis sive stylus; quibus si flores accedant, ad utilitatem fortasse parum, ad jucunditatem vero plurimum iuvant. Horum ego scriptorum aliquot breviter annotabo, ne in his, qui somnia sua potius, quam paeclaram aliquid scripserunt, sumptus et tempus medicus inaniter consumat, et bibliotheca ipsius paucis sed selectis instruatur, et exornetur potius quam oneretur.” Ibid., p. 88.

⁶²Ibid., pp. 88–91.

⁶³“In quem usum pleraque etiam scripta politica nostro hoc politicorum feracissimo seculo prodierunt, in quibus omnibus semper diligenter observandum, si quae ad medicorum mores, vel ad medicam materiam, vel etiam ad medicam artem exornandam, amplificandamque inveniantur …”. Ibid., p. 91.

⁶⁴See De Castro’s references to the work Democrates (presumably, the Democrates primus o Dialogus de convenientia militaris disciplinae cum christiana religione) [1535] by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1490–1573) (ibid., p. 53); and to Benito Arias Montano (1527–1598) (ibid., p. 51); as well as his defence that the physician is obliged to help anybody who asks, irrespective of the patient’s religion, on the assumption that all human beings of every nation are like each other because of the single Creation—against Epicurean theses, and in agreement with the ius gentium of Francisco de Vitoria (1483/6–1546): “… sed id monemus, ut quemlibet particularem auxilium postulantem curandum suscipiat medicus, susceptumque omni sedulitate tractare studeat, sive Christianus ille sit, sive Judaeus sive Turca, sive Gentilis, omnes enim humanitatis lege sunt colligati, et omnes pariter a medico tractandos esse humanitas postulat. Est enim non solum ineptus verumetiam impius error eorum, qui in Epicuri dogmata lapsi, sativos homines fuisse putarunt, vel saltem quosdam populos terrae parentis indigenas esse crediderunt; quod quasi nobilitatis decus Atheniensibus tribuit Aristides, et, ut auctor est Bodinus, Altamerus auctoritate Taciti et aliorum Germanos in ipsa Germania genitos, nec ab ulla gente derivatos refert. Et Polydorus Virgilius Britannos in mediterraneis sitos, nec aliunde advenisse Caesarem secutus affirmat. Qui omnes magno errore et scelere obligantur, tum quod ea, quae Moyses divinus historicus in sacris literis de originibus testata relinquit, ineptissime oppugnant, tum etiam, quod nulla gentibus illis origine, quam a patrio solo tributa, eas ab aliorum societate, et amicitia omnium divellunt. Nam praeter caetera, quae divinum Moysen ad origines scribendas impulerunt, illud non minimum fuisse videtur, ut omnes homines, ad quos ea fama pervenisset, intelligerent, se esse consanguineos, et eadem generis conjunctione sociatos, quod ad amicitias stabiliendas plurimum valet. Adeo, ut pleraeque gentes et armati exercitus sola cognationis specie inimicitias deposuerint, qua etiam cognatione, et gentilitatis vinculo ductus medicus, omnes aequali fedulitate tractare tenetur. Immo ut omnis suscipio removeatur, nescio quid plus curae ac sollicitudinis in adversario adhibendum, ut malitiam, si qua in eo fuerat, bonitate superemus.” Ibid., p. 168.

⁶⁵“Quae profecto via ad medicae artis perfectionem fuerit optima, ne qui primum in nido producti, ac prope implumes volare nituntur, in terram concidant, sed utroque, rationis scilicet atque experientiae, pede nixi secure progrediantur. Cursibus quidem in laudatissima Salmanticensi Academia quadriennium est constitutum, quo optimos professores alumni medicinae frequentare tenentur; tum deinde publico examine praestito, totius collegii medici suffragia experiri, quorum consensu si apti renuncientur, insignibus decorentur suis, nec tamen prius totius collegii testimonium scripto academiae sigillo comprobato illis conceditur, quam per biennium saltem alios praeeuntes in praxi sequantur, tunc vero testimonium illis tribuitur, quocunque tandem circumferendum, quo se judicatos ostendant, quibus fides in arte medica praestanda adhibendaque ab omnibus sit. At vero examen minime corrupte sit, sed servata lege magna cum integritate, ita ut plerique repulsam interdum patiantur, aut eorum approbatio suspendatur adhuc in annum aut biennium, quo ultra praescriptum tempus publicas lectiones frequentare teneantur, et si ne id quidem sufficiat, quotquot habuerit nigros calculos, in testimonio exprimi consuevit, ut ubique postea constare possit, cui tuto, et cui minus tuto homines suam salutem concredere debeant. Utinam talis mos in aliarum regionum academiis observaretur, et neque precibus neque pretio, sed juxta merita uniuscujusque promotio fieret, saepe etiam, uti audio, ex aliunde mutuatis declamationibus, ac thesibus medicis ab ipsis praeceptoribus, vel aliis consarcinatis.” Ibid., p. 197.

⁶⁶Ibid., pp. 68, 82, 249, 250.

⁶⁷“Major est ambiguitas, si quando dissidium incidit inter medicum et cognatum, qui durante dissidio morbo corripitur, teneaturne medicus illum non vocatus visitare. Cui affirmative respondeo, exemplo professorum Salmanticensium, inter quos etiamsi magnae interdum simultates intercedant, si quis tamen decumbat reliqui etiam dissidentes ob studiorum communitatem eum solent peramanter visitare, neque vero minor est cognationis quam studiorum consensus.” Ibid., p. 164.

⁶⁸“Qua tamen in re antiqua gymnasiorum statuta, et quae hodie Salmanticae praesertim, religiose servantur, magno consilio condita conscientias promoventium onerant, quae expresse jubent, ne quem ad superiores dignitates scholasticas admittant, de quo universitas eruberscere possit.” Ibid., p. 199.

⁶⁹“Verum enimvero linguarum peritia omnino opus est, nam sermone Latino non potest medicus carere sine magna turpitudine, Graeco nec sine turpitudine, nec sine artis dispendio; non enim habemus materna lingua medicorum monumenta, sed Graece, Latine et pleraque Arabice; at enim nostra hac aetate linguarum etiam vulgarium notitia utilis, ut diversarum nationum et gentium aegrotos possit medicus visitare atque unumquemque sua lingua alloqui.” Ibid., p. 54.

⁷⁰Ibid., pp. 53–7.

⁷¹Ibid., pp. 57–64.

⁷²Ibid., pp. 56–7.

⁷³On Henríques’ work, see the bibliography referred to at note 3 above.

⁷⁴Kamen, op. cit., note 11 above, p. 168.

⁷⁵Arrizabalaga, op. cit., note 3 above, pp. 89–91.

⁷⁶Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 299–305.

⁷⁷De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, pp. 224–9; Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 297–9.

⁷⁸Efron, op. cit., note 30 above, pp. 46, 58.

⁷⁹De Castro, op. cit., note 13 above, p. 14; Ruderman, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 245–6.

⁸⁰This medical conservatism was still alive in the second half of the seventeenth century. In this respect there is the striking case of the marrano Diego Mateo Zapata (1664–1745) whose medical thought evolved from a radical Galenism in the early years of his career (at least, until 1693) to become a champion of chemical medicine. See José Pardo Tomás, El médico en la palestra. Diego Mateo Zapata (1664–1745) y la ciencia moderna en España, Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y León, 2004, pp. 129–68.

⁸¹Andrés Laguna (c.1511–1559) appears to be one of the few exceptions to this rule. His strong alignment with medical Hellenism might have been due not only to his medical education in Paris, where this movement was then most aggressive, but also to a probable rejection of his own Jewish identity (see Caro Baroja, op. cit., note 2 above: vol. 2, pp. 188–9). Laguna’s determination to obtain titles could also be ascribed to a desire to wipe away the traces of his converso lineage (see Arrizabalaga, op. cit., note 2 above, pp. 319–20).