Once apothecaries had been trained, the opportunities open to them to practise their art varied largely according to the financial resources they possessed. Contemporary observations and advice given to those aspiring to be independent boticarios converge in the judgement that in order to establish a pharmacy one had to be a person of moderate means. Christóval Suárez de Figueroa’s encyclopaedia of the qualities required of those practising different professions suggested that the pharmacy profession was not one for the poor. This view was echoed by Antonio de Robles Cornejo who with experience in Peru advised that no one should attempt to open up a botica “without being rich or at least with substantial funds.”2 The need for boticarios to have significant financial resources was underlined in the city ordinances of Seville in 1591 which specified that in order to obtain a licence, a boticario not only had to pass the requisite examinations, but also show that he possessed 500 ducados (690 pesos) in order to purchase simples for the preparation of medicines.3 There is no evidence that a similar local ordinance was drawn up in Lima, though there was no lesser need for boticarios to have significant financial backing. The reason given was not so much the cost of the premises or labour, but the high cost of medicines. It was generally considered that thoseThis profession is not for the poor.1
For many boticarios who acquired licences, the expense of setting up an independent business was not a realistic economic proposition. Moreover, established boticarios often discouraged those they had trained or who were in their employment from setting up independent businesses for fear of competition and that they would take their customers with them. In the case of surgeons and barbers, the guild persuaded the municipal authority in Lima to introduce a regulation stipulating that apprentices and newly trained journeymen known as oficiales could not set up shops within four blocks of their master’s practice for a year and a day.5 A similar ordinance, does not seem to have applied to boticarios, but there were private efforts to restrict the competition. For example, in 1618 Luis Nieto Maldonado rented a botica in Cuzco from one Fernando de Cartagena and his four-year contract specified that for two years following the end of the contract he could not set up a new botica in the city, either personally or through an intermediary, though he could purchase one of the two that already existed.6 In any case, the establishment of any new botica required municipal approval.
In common with other trades, many trained boticarios who lacked the resources to set up independent businesses continued to work in the salaried employment of a maestro until they had secured sufficient capital to open up their own pharmacies.7 In the 1630s, the apothecary to the Inquisition, Mateo Pastor, had at least two oficiales working in his botica.8Licenciado Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca appears to have aspired to be an independent boticario, but he could only realise this ambition in 1605 by entering into a compañía or partnership with Francisco Martín Reyna to purchase a pharmacy that had formerly belonged to Diego de Tineo. In this compañía Díaz Cabeza de Vaca
Other trained boticarios sought paid employment in public institutions such as hospitals, convents, or prisons.14 (see Figure 1) Apothecaries employed in the Hospitals of Santa Ana and San Andrés were paid between 300 and 400 pesos a year, part of which might be paid in kind in the form of accommodation and food. For example, Rodrigo de Vargas, who held the post of boticario of the Hospital of Santa Ana for over thirty years was given a house in the hospital grounds and a ration of three pounds of beef and mutton, three loaves of bread of more than one pound, six bottles of local wine, and twelve blocks of soap from Spain.15 This salary was only slightly less than that paid to physicians in the same hospitals and considerably more than the 200 pesos and 50 pesos paid to surgeons and barbers respectively.16
Residents of Lima who became independent boticarios acquired pharmacies in different ways. In the earliest years of colonial rule those apothecaries who had been licensed and practised in Spain often brought medicines and equipment with them to set up a pharmacy business, generally migrating with their families, servants or assistants. When the boticario Pedro de la Fuente moved to Lima in 1534, he took with him 500,000 maravedís (about 1,800 pesos) worth of goods, though it is not known what proportion was destined for the establishment of a botica.17 Pharmacy was often a family profession such that some boticarios who settled in the Americas were sons of licensed practitioners in Spain.18 Once established in the New World, pharmacies might pass from father to son, as was the case with Pedro de Bilbao in Lima who inherited his botica from his father, Juan de Bilbao, for whom he had worked for five years.19 However, more evidence exists for the purchase of boticas either individually or as part of a joint venture.
The total cost of the botica of the Hospital of Santa Ana of 3,400 pesos de oro en plata ensayada,24 which was equivalent to 5,625 pesos corrientes, does not seem out of line with the value of private boticas in the city. The botica
The poet Virgil in a basket. Lucas van Leyden, Woodcut, Leiden 1512.
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Not all pharmacies were installed so extravagantly, but nevertheless, they commanded fairly high prices. In 1551 a botica sold to one Pero Lopes de Aguirre for 2,210 pesos de buen oro,28 and in 1576, when the botica of Francisco de Alva was auctioned following his death, it netted a similar 2,400 pesos.29 However, Alva’s will was disputed by his children and five boticarios testified that it was actually worth more than 4,000 pesos de buen oro, because it was the best in the city and possessed very good equipment and medicines.30 One of the
Due to the high cost of establishing a botica, some pharmacies were set up as joint enterprises. A common way of establishing businesses in sixteenth-century Lima was to form a compañía of two or more investors.35 Apothecaries were able to attract investment from non-boticarios, because pharmacy was considered to be a profitable business.36 In 1605 the boticario Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca entered into a compañía with Francisco Martín Reyna for the purchase of a botica from Pedro and Joan de Tineo, which was located next to the cathedral.37 Pedro and Joan de Tineo were nephews of the boticario
Clearly those seeking to acquire or establish boticas had to have access to considerable capital resources, but in addition they had to shoulder significant running costs. The value of pharmacies recorded in historical sources generally referred to its medicines, equipment and books and not the premises where it was located, since these were generally rented. A functioning pharmacy required at least three rooms: a front room where the boticario met clients and dispensed medicines; a back room known as a trastienda or rebotica where the medicines were prepared, the equipment kept, and accounts drawn up; and a store room or aposento.44 In the case of Díaz Cabeza de Vaca, rent for the building in which his botica was located was 650 pesos a year; in addition he rented an aposento next door, for an unspecified amount, and where in fact he lived.45 It was the tradition in Spain, even until recently, for boticarios to live on the premises, very often above the pharmacy which was on the ground floor.46 This botica was situated in a prime location next to the cathedral and elsewhere rents were somewhat less.47 In 1551 the physician, Alvaro de Torres was renting out a tienda and trastienda on the road running to Callao for the much smaller sum of 120 pesos a year.48 Even hospitals might rent extra premises. In 1574 Rodrigo de Vargas, the boticario of the Hospital of Santa Ana, was renting two houses in the hospital’s plaza for 60 pesos and 15 pesos a year.49 Sometimes the cost of premises was paid for in kind, as was the case with Bernardo Gil who rented an aposento from the widow of the former boticario Melchor Malo de Molina for a notional 100 pesos a year for which he paid in kind through supplying her household with medicines.50
As for the location of a pharmacy, wind and humidity were thought to damage drugs,51 so the advice to aspirant boticarios was that it should be “situated in a healthy place, dry (ajena de humedad) and free from dust, smoke and bad
Employing Pharmacy Workers
Licensed boticarios, including the oficiales referred to above, were probably only a small proportion of the numbers that assisted or even practised pharmacy. Many other pharmacists were Blacks and Indians who worked as salaried employees or slaves in privately-owned boticas and hospitals. As early as 1572 the cabildo of Lima was concerned that Blacks and Indians working in boticas were threatening the lives of patients by supplying medicines that did not comply with prescriptions, sometimes substituting items with ingredients that had been banned, such as opium, or selling mercury chloride or corrosive sublimate (solimán). It judged that the art of being an apothecary required scientific knowledge, skill and precision, which it was impossible for Blacks and Indians to possess; it was recognised that even Spaniards trained in the art occasionally made mistakes. The cabildo therefore ordered that Blacks and Indians should not work in boticas and that apothecaries found guilty of employing them should be fined 200 pesos and the workers exiled.53
Despite these concerns and attempts at regulation, to be discussed more fully in Chapter 5, Indians were assigned to work in pharmacies as forced labourers, while Blacks were widely employed there. In fact, boticarios observed that clients often sought advice and treatment from practitioners from the same ethnic background and thus they often employed Indians and Blacks to expand their customer base.54
Indian Forced Labourers
When the Spanish arrived in Peru, the native population of Lima was small and subsequently most Indians who resided there came from outside the city.
Those who lived permanently in the city and others who were not required for public labour service might contract themselves to employers for fixed periods and wages. These contracts were supposed to be drawn up in the presence of a corregidor. Apart from fixed wages, workers on contract might receive clothing, shelter and medical care, conditions that might be attractive to those lacking any alternative means of subsistence. The minimum wage for contracted workers was 12 pesos a year, often plus lodging, food, clothing and medical care, though wages varied according to their skills.59 In the Hospital of
Black Pharmacy Workers
Blacks vastly outnumbered Indians in Lima. In 1613 there were about 10,000 Blacks in the city,62 and they were more commonly employed in all types of boticas than Indians. Most boticarios possessed several slaves, though many probably worked in their households rather than their pharmacies.63 The will of one eminent apothecary, Francisco de Alva, who became boticario to the Inquisition,64 owned six slaves, of whom one Matheo aged 30 worked in the botica.65 This slave had clearly acquired considerable pharmacy skills, because following the boticario’s death in 1576 when most of his possessions were auctioned, the “negro boticario” who remained with his second wife became
Not only private boticas, but also hospitals were staffed largely by African slaves. They mainly undertook routine tasks such as cooking, cleaning and washing, but might also serve as nurses and assist in surgery. In fact, in a visita of the Hospital of Santa Ana in 1587 it was recommended that “gente de color” be employed as nurses and assistants in preference to Indians due to their greater dedication to work.71 Apart from undertaking routine tasks, there is
Running a Pharmacy
Despite Lima being a particularly healthy city, life expectancy in the sixteenth century was low. Its residents were constantly preoccupied with their health which meant that they were willing to expend large sums of money on medical treatments.75 A priest attached to the Cathedral who suffered from a long-term illness and had no financial resources was willing to take out a loan of 3,000 pesos from its mayordomo to pay for his treatment.76 The high demand for medicines and willingness to pay high prices should have made pharmacy a profitable business, but a central feature of the way it was managed was that it ran largely on credit. This was problematic because often the patients died or migrated elsewhere before clearing their debts, so that boticarios were often owed several thousand pesos. On his death in 1636, a number of Pedro de Bilbao’s clients were noted as living in Chile, Mexico, and Potosí.77 Often relatives of the deceased or institutions had to be pursued through the law courts in order to recover the debts. This could be a protracted and costly process which meant that boticarios had to have significant financial backing in order to keep their businesses running on a day-to-day basis in the meantime.
Elite families generally made annual contracts with physicians and surgeons to treat their households. How much they charged varied, possibly according
The procedure for charging for medicines and recovering debts was as follows. A physician would draw up a prescription (receta) for medicines which would then be supplied by a boticario. Generally the patient did not pay for the medicines immediately, but when the medicines were delivered he or she signed the prescription acknowledging that they had been received. The signed receipts or vales, which did not indicate the cost, were then kept by the boticario as evidence of the medicines he had supplied. Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca kept his receipts for different patients and households on separate strings, which at the time of his death numbered 195. He often recorded the profession of his clients, from which it is apparent that he served a wide spectrum of individuals from the governor, members of the cabildo, priests,
In general large debts, that is mainly those over 100 pesos, were pursued through the courts. A significant number of legal cases relating to the recovery of sums owed to boticarios are to be found in the section Causas Civiles in the Archivo Arzobispal in Lima.83 In presenting a claim a boticario would include a list of the medicines that he had supplied and the vales on which the list was based (See Figures 3 and 4). The legal procedure was that a physician or boticario would then be employed to assess the value of the medicines; in most cases they were valued at about half of what the boticarios claimed. Boticarios were infamous for overcharging for medicines, so that they rarely challenged the lower assessments.
List of medicines supplied by Bernardo Gil to Don Juan Zapata 1640.
Source: AAL Causas Civiles legajo 50 exp. 16 Autos seguidos por Bernardo Gil, boticario, contra los bienes y albacea del Lic. Don Juan Zapata, clérigo presbítero. 1640.Courtesy Archivo Arzobispal, Lima. Photo: author.
Receipt for medicines supplied to Don Juan de los Ríos by Bernardo Gil, 1633.
… diacatholici ȝi cumdecocto sene fiat potus
[one ounce of diacatolicon with a decoction of senna to make a potion].
don juan de los rríos
… se sirva de mandar aser [hacer] la purga que sea libiana [liviana] porque es para una niña de siete años. La contrarotura.
[…it serves to order to make a purgative which should be light because it is for a girl of seven years old. The plaster.]
Source: aal Causas Civiles Leg. 42A, exp. 2 Causa seguida por Bernardo Gil, dueño de botica, contra el bachiller Don Juan de los Ríos, clérigo presbítero. 1633. Courtesy Archivo Arzobispal, Lima. Photo: author.
Sometimes clients objected to the bills on the grounds that the vales had not been signed or were not authentic. They might also refuse to pay claiming collusion between the boticario and the witnesses who were called to testify. In response to a claim for 150 pesos brought by the boticario Bernardo Gil, the defendant a priest, Doctor Sebastián de Betanzos, claimed that two of the witnesses had “a close friendship and connexion with him [Gil] and are in his house and company and eat with him, and as such I think they are untrustworthy and challenge they should be witnesses or be believed.”84 Similarly, in a redhibition case brought against Manuel Bautista Pérez by one Doña Francisca de Guzmán y Quintana for the sale of a slave who was suffering from severe stomach pains and unable to work, she claimed that all the witnesses, which included two surgeons, were his “servants, compatriots, [and]
The largest debts were incurred by monasteries, convents, hospitals, and the Inquisition. It was practice for the cabildo to make contracts with specific boticarios to supply medicines to all the city’s monasteries and from the outset it had to tackle the issue of overcharging.89 Up to the beginning of the seventeenth century this contract, while substantial, was never worth more than 5,000 pesos corrientes and it was handled by one boticario. However, in 1604 the contract was divided between two boticarios and by 1606 the cost had risen to 13,015.5 pesos, a figure that the cabildo considered unacceptable. In order to reduce the cost, the contract was put out to tender and in 1610 it was split between two other boticarios: Gerónimo Pujadas, who was to supply the Dominican, Franciscan, and Jesuit monasteries, and Pedro de Bilbao the Augustinian. Pujadas’s pharmacy and contract were later taken over by Francisco de Sandoval about whom there were constant complaints. It was claimed he committed many frauds, altering and adding to prescriptions, such that one claim that he submitted for supplying medicines between 1619 and 1620 was reduced significantly
Francisco de Sandoval not only supplied several monasteries, but also the female Convent of La Concepción. In 1625 he initiated a legal case against the Convent on behalf of the widow of Gerónimo Pujadas from whom he had assumed charge of the botica. This was over the payment of 10,087 pesos relating to medicines that had been supplied between 1619 and 1622.91 However, the claim was disputed by the Convent on the grounds that not all the vales for items listed had been presented and others were unsigned. It also asserted that some of the items had not been claimed for within three years, as was apparently required by law, and were therefore invalid. In addition the Convent argued that the assessment by the boticario, Juan Ximénez Villayzan, had included many invalid recetas and a number of arithmetic errors. The assessor himself acknowledged that the task of reviewing some 5,912 recetas had been daunting and had been hard work over two months. The Convent then raised the question of whether the widow of Gerónimo Pujadas had a legal claim. In attempting to resolve the issue, a reassessment was ordered on the basis of 3,987 agreed receipts and in the end, in 1629, a value of 5,788 pesos 2 reales was imposed by the physician and later protomédico, Juan de la Vega. The latter amount appears to have been paid, but there were ongoing disputes between Sandoval and the Convent over medicines that he had supplied on his own account.92 As late as 1650, the legitimate son of Gerónimo Pujadas
Even if claims were valid, often clients lacked the resources to meet them. The Convent of La Concepción claimed that it was poor and did not receive government support, unlike male monasteries. Although in theory it received substantial dowries for the entry of women into the Convent, very often they were paid from censos. These were annuities paid from the income of a house or other property, usually of five percent, which were pledged for a number of years or in perpetuity.94 The problem from the perspective of the Convent was that often householders could not afford repairs to their properties so that many fell into disrepair such that the income they generated declined.95 Apart from the censos, the only other source of income was from an obraje producing serges and rope and this was deemed insufficient to pay for medicines and for the service of medical practitioners. The Convent admitted that it owed “a large amount of pesos” which it was unable to pay.96
Francisco de Sandoval may have been running a particularly fraudulent business, but supplying medicines to convents required substantial financial resources and incurred some risk for anyone accepting the contract. When Pedro de Bilbao died in 1636, he was not only owed 8,211 pesos for prescriptions supplied to 156 individuals, plus 76 pesos supplied to the Inquisition’s prison, but also for medicines supplied over nine years to the Convent of La Merced and for four years to the Convent of San Agustín.97 In addition he was owed 28,000 pesos worth for medicines he had supplied to the Convent of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación, which was subject to a law suit.98 This was not all,
One may wonder why boticarios allowed clients to run up such large debts, even if they were exaggerated. It suggests that their businesses were sufficiently profitable to bear the debts and that the amounts that they were owed did not affect the day-to-day operation of their pharmacies. There are no instances of boticarios being made bankrupt or evidence of them complaining of being poor. Such debts were common in many businesses at this time.
In the early modern period, business success depended on reputation and trust.100 In Europe the largest debts were incurred by elites, such as government officials and lawyers. Apothecaries felt obliged to treat them even if they anticipated that they would not be paid, since they feared that refusal would damage their reputations.101 Debts, though incurring a cost, might actually bring some benefits. They could be used to develop or maintain relations of patronage-clientage that could ensure continued custom. Large contracts with major public and charitable institutions could only be fulfilled by boticarios with considerable financial backing and a good reputation. Although as shown above a good reputation was not always justified, the award of such contracts served as an indicator of their high economic status. Supplying medicines on credit to charitable institutions might also reflect on the religious piety and social standing of a boticario. For this reason, Paula De Vos argues that boticarios in Mexico City allowed charitable institutions to run up debts and rarely called them in.102 The evidence for Lima indicates that convents were similarly allowed to build up debts over considerable periods of time, but in contrast to Mexico some boticarios in Lima did pursue some convents through the courts, as was the case of Pedro de Bilbao against the Convent of La Encarnación. Furthermore, in common with other boticarios he did not demure from overcharging charitable institutions. It suggests that there were limits to the support that boticarios gave to charitable causes in the form of reduced prices for medicines. After all, as will be shown in Chapter 7, they could demonstrate their
Conclusion
The manner in which boticas were established and apothecaries and ran their businesses did not differ significantly from those in Spain. However, the personnel they employed and their interaction with charitable institutions seems to have differed. In Lima as in Spain, it was the case that boticarios had to have substantial financial resources to own a botica. Although detailed financial accounts kept by boticarios are lacking, the fact that pharmacy could attract non-boticario investors suggests that it was regarded as a profitable business. As will be shown in Chapter 7, the most prominent apothecaries amassed significant personal fortunes and could pay large dowries for their daughters. While boticarios in Lima were certainly interested in making profits, at the same time they were not entirely capitalistic for they did not invest their gains in expanding their businesses, but rather expended them on charitable activities that confirmed their social standing and assured them of an advantageous position in the afterlife.
Because substantial financial resources were needed to establish a botica, few were established in the city. Yet there were many others who were practising pharmacy as salaried employees, forced labourers, or slaves in both private pharmacies and hospitals. While the cabildo issued ordinances against boticarios employing non-licensed workers, especially Blacks and those of mixed race, they were not vigorously enforced. While this reflected in part the predominance of African slaves in the city’s population, the seeming preference for the employment of slave labour may also have derived from their status of permanent servitude that enabled boticarios to invest in developing the pharmacy knowledge and skills of these workers in a way that was not possible with Indian forced labourers who were generally assigned for short periods and were constantly changing.
The ethnic diversity of those employed in boticas provided opportunities for the exchange of medicinal knowledge. However, the hierarchical structure of employment in boticas and the slave status of many employees would have discouraged a two-way exchange. Employees would have been taught how to prepare medicines by a licensed boticario, who invariably had been trained in humoral medicine and on whom they depended for their job, livelihood, and
Pharmacies whether established in hospitals or run as private businesses did not operate as independent enterprises. They were subject to regulation by the protomedicato and municipal authorities, which among other things arranged for the inspection of pharmacies. This was primarily to ensure that out-of-date and dangerous drugs were not being prescribed and to prevent overcharging. However, they also paid attention to the types of medicines they contained, so that as will be shown, the inspections served to promote orthodox humoral practice. The regulation of pharmacies will be explored in Chapter 5 where competing approaches to medical practice are considered. Since considerable insight into medical practices in Peru can be gleaned from an analysis of the cargoes of materia medica and books imported from Spain and traded locally, the study turns first to an analysis of the transatlantic and local trading networks through which these commodities moved.
Suárez de Figueroa, Plaza universal, 302. Paula De Vos, “The Apothecary in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Mexico: Historiography and Case Studies in Medical Regulation, Charity, and Science,” Colonial Latin American Historical Review 13(3)(2004): 253 notes that this guide was based on Tomaso Garzoni’s, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo [1587] 2 vols. eds. Paolo Cherchi and Beatrice Collina (Turin: Giulio Einaldi, 1996), but suggests that the role of apothecaries is likely to have been similar in Spain and Italy.
He says, “sin ser rico o al menos con gruas riquezas mucha cantidad de pesos.” arjbm División 1, leg. 17 Libro de examen de los simples medicinales 1617. These comments echo those of Antonio de Aguilera, who in his Exposición sobre las preparaciones de Mesue, fols. 20v.-21v. advised that boticarios should be “rich or at least be of sufficient means.”
ams Varios Antiguos 370 Ordenanzas de boticarios 1 Mar 1591; Fernández-Carrión and Valverde, Farmacia y sociedad, 15.
Salinas y Córdova, Memorial, 257. At the same there were said to be nine médicos, ten surgeons and three Spanish barbers’ shops with many oficiales. Juan Bromley, however, suggests there were 18 boticas (“La ciudad de Lima en el año 1630,” Revista histórica 24 (1959): 286).
Quiroz Chueca, Gremios coloniales peruanos, 14–16.
“Un botica colonial,” Revista del archivo histórico del Cuzco 4 (1953): 279.
Quiroz Chueca, Gremios, razas y libertad, 19–23.
agnp so co 44–394 fols. 191–210 Prisión, secuestro e inventario de bienes de Tome Cuaresma 20 Nov. 1635.
aal Testamentos leg. 5 exp.1 fols. 7v–8 Testamento de Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 10 Apr. 1608.
agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 55 Rodrigo Gómez Baeza fols. 187–187v. Contract between Blas de Medina and Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 13 Aug. 1596.
For contracts between boticarios and oficiales see: agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 54 Rodrigo Gómez Baeza (1594) fols. 641–641v. Contract between Luis Nieto Maldonado and Juan de Arce 7 Jun. 1595; agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 55 Rodrigo Gómez Baeza fols. 980–980v. Contract between Luis Nieto Maldonado and Juan de Horosco 12 Jun. 1596.
Francisco Quiroz Chueca, “Artisans and Journeymen in Colonial Lima.” Unpublished manuscript, 2014.
Quiroz Chueca, Gremios, razas y libertad, 22.
Unlike hospitals and convents, Lima’s four public prisons did not seem to have salaried boticarios (agi Lima 134 Cofradía de los pobres de las carceles de la ciudad de los reyes 1598; agi Lima 131 Los hermanos de los pobres de las carceles de los reyes 27 Feb. 1593).
Archivo de Beneficencia Pública, Lima (hereafter abpl) 9086 fols. 104–105 Visita al Hospital de Santa Ana fols. 104–105 no date [1588]. He was appointed to the hospital in 1567 and was still working there in 1606.
abpl 9086 fols. 272–73 Visita al hospital de Santa Ana 26 May 1588; abpl 9083 fol. 90 Libro mayor de rentas del hospital de Santa Ana desde 1593 a 1629; abpl 9084 fols. 132, 145, 162 Libro de cuentas de gastos del hospital de Santa Ana año 1598; abpl 9086 fols. 6–7, 124 Visita al hospital de Santa Ana 1606; agi Lima 122 fol. 38 Información del hospital de Santa Ana 1570. In 1582 the salary of the boticario at the hospital of San Andrés was only 150 pesos (agi Lima 126 fols. 9v., 16v. El hospital real de los españoles de advocación San Andrés 1582), but in the early seventeenth century was 400 pesos, equivalent to that paid in the hospital of Santa Ana (Cobo, Obras, 2: 444). However, the ordinances for the hospital of San Andrés in 1577 made no provision for a salaried boticario, rather a priest took care of the botica which was supposed to be inspected by a physician or protomédico every three months (Guillermo Lohmann Villena and Maria Justina Sarabia Viejo, Francisco de Toledo: Disposiciones gubernativas para el virreinato del Perú 1575–1580 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1989), 318. For salaries for boticarios in Mexico City in the eighteenth century see Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal, 162, which indicates similar differentials between different types of medical practitioner.
agi Contratación 5536 L2 N167 Licence granted to Pedro de San Martín and Pedro de Fuente, boticario 21 Mar. 1534.
Joaquín Herrera Dávila, “Las boticas sevillanas de 1631,” Boletín de la sociedad española de historia de la farmacia 39 (154–155) (1988): 73; Fernández-Carrión and Valverde, Farmacia y Sociedad, 61–64, 73.
agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 14 Ramiro Bote fols. 1629–1631 Juan de Bilbao dona a Pedro de Bilbao, su hijo, de una botica con todas sus botes y drogas 3 Aug. 1596. In fact Juan Bromley states that Juan de Bilbao inherited it from his father Francisco de Bilbao who had possessed the contract for the establishment of a pharmacy in the Hospital of Santa Ana (Juan Bromley, Las viejas calles de Lima (Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima: Lima, 2005), 257–58.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 63 Diego Gutiérrez fols. 167–88 Hospital de los españoles y naturales compañía con Francisco de Bilbao de la botica 20 Oct. 1551; Miguel Rabí Chara, “La primera botica de los hospitales de la ciudad de Lima en el siglo xvi,” Asclepio 52 (2000): 273–77.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 63 Diego Gutiérrez fols. 167–88 El hospital de los españoles y naturales con Francisco de Bilbao de la botica 9 Mar 1552. The detailed cost of individual items in the botica suggests it was worth 289,110 maravedís (1,062 pesos), of which 61,750 was spent on equipment. The figure of 289,110 maravedís, however, is difficult to reconcile with the stated overall cost of 3,400 pesos de oro en plata ensayada.
aal Testamentos 5 leg. 1 fol. 165v. Memoria de las medicinas que tenía esta botica cuando la compraron… Bartolome Cabeza de Vaca 1608. The most expensive items were those made of metal – mortars, boiling pans and ladles –which were worth 250 pesos. Other items consisted of boxes, jars, pots and other receptacles containing pill, powders, syrups, cordials, oils, ointments and plasters. It is not clear whether the value of these receptacles included the medicines they contained.
agi Contratación 1097 N5 fols. 199–202 Registro de Santa Catalina 1592.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 63 Diego Gutiérrez fols. 167–88 Hospital de los españoles y naturales compañía con Francisco de Bilbao de la botica 20 Oct. 1551; Rabí Chara, “Primera botica,” 273–77. A peso de oro was equivalent to 450 maravedís and a peso corriente 272 maravedís.
John Carter Brown Library (hereafter jcb) Mss codex Sp 136 Francisco Martínez y compañía obligación – Diego de Tineo y consortes 1555.
John Webster Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer: Studies in Virgilian Legends (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), 136–55, 198–206.
Spargo, Virgil the Necromancer, 277–79.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 8 Simón Alzate fols. 841v–842 26 June 1551.
The botica had been purchased from Luis Núñez de Prado (agnp Real Audiencia. Causas Civiles leg. 16 cuad. 81 fol. 7v., 16 Pleito…contra las bienes y herederos del bachiller Francisco de Alva, boticario morador en la Ciudad de los Reyes, 1576).
agnp Real Audiencia. Causas Civiles leg. 16 cuad. 81 fols. 119–26, 687–715 Pleito… contra las bienes y herederos del bachiller Francisco de Alva, boticario morador en la Ciudad de los Reyes. 1576. The boticarios were: Guillermo Rodríguez aged 48, Francisco Velásquez aged 30, Blas de Medina aged 34, Diego de Tineo 70 and Doctor Franco, a physician.
Libros de cabildos de Lima, 7: 549 Título familiar al bachiller Alba [sic] 21 Jan. 1574, Libros de cabildos de Lima, 8: 201 Familiar del santo oficio a Juan de Bilbao 24 Feb. 1576.
agnp Real Audiencia. Causas Civiles leg. 16 cuad. 81 fol. 7v., 687 Pleito…contra las bienes y herederos del bachiller Francisco de Alva, boticario morador en la Ciudad de los Reyes. 1576. In 1599 the boticario Francisco Martín Reyna was renting a house under the portales of the plaza from the heirs of Marina Alva (Libros de cabildos de Lima, 13: 516–17 Francisco Martín Reyna 21 Jul. 1600).
Quiroz, Artesanos y manufactureros, 83. For similar shared investments in pharmacies in Mexico see: Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal, 161–62.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries boticas in Mexico City were commonly valued at between one and two thousand pesos though might be considerably more in the case of the major hospitals For a hospital botica it was estimated that 6,000 pesos were required for installations and equipment only, and a further 14,000 pesos to stock it (Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal, 159–162; De Vos, “Art of Pharmacy,” 72–73).
Quiroz, Artesanos y manufactureros, 84, and Gremios, razas y libertad, 71–82.
For example, in 1551 an alcalde ordinario, Gerónimo de Silva, sold a botica to Pero Lopes de Aguirre, with whom he had formed a compañía, neither of whom were referred to as boticarios (agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 8 Simón Alzate fols. 841v–842 26 June 1551). For Mexico City see: De Vos, “Art of Pharmacy,” 72–74.
aal Testamentos 5–1 fols. 12v–13 Testamento de Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 1608.
Diego de Tineo was still practising as a boticario in 1590 (agi Lima 272 fols. 94–112v. Servicio hecho al rey nuestro señor en la ciudad de los reyes 1590).
aal Testamentos 5–1 fols. 175–181v. Testamento de Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 1608.
agi Lima 272 fols. 94–112v. Servicio hecho al rey nuestro señor en la ciudad de los reyes 1590; abpl 9084 fols. 241–242v. Libro de cuentas de gastos del hospital de Santa Ana 1599–1600; abpl 9085 fols. 59–64 Libro de la razón que toma Bartolomé de la Cueva escribano y veedor deste hospital de Santa Ana…desde el primero del mes de agosto 1595.
agi Contratación 1162 N4 43–46 Registro del navío San Pedro 1615; agi Contratación 1166 N1 403–406 Registro del navío El Espíritu Santo 1618.
Quiroz Chueca, “Compañías y gremios,” and Artesanos y manufactureros, 85; Ruth Pike, Aristocrats and Traders: Sevillian Society in the Sixteenth Century (Ithaca, ny: Cornell University Press, 1972), 100.
aal Testamentos 52–21 fols. 8v. Testamento de Bernardo Gil, boticario 1662.
Hernández Sáenz, Learning to Heal, 152; De Vos, “Art of Pharmacy,” 88–89.
aal Testamentos 5–1 fols. 14v., 181r. Testamento de Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 1608.
Herrera Dávila, “Boticas sevillanas de 1631,” 72.
For an overview of rents in Lima in the seventeenth century see María Antonia Durán Montero, Lima en el siglo xvii: Arquitectura, urbanismo y vida cotidiana (Sevilla: Diputación Provincial, 1994), 166–74.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 8 Simón Alzate fols. 924–924v. 9 Jul. 1551.
abpl 9080 fol. 102 Libro de cuentas, censos y haberes que corresponden al del hospital de Santa Ana 1575 a 1585.
aal Testamentos 52–21 fol. 10–10v. Testamento de Bernardo Gil, boticario 1662.
Aguilera, Exposición, fol. 24. “…not windy or humid, or least very clear where there is a lot of sunshine.”
Suárez de Figueroa, Plaza universal, 302.
Libros de cabildos de Lima, 7: 268 Boticarios no tengan en boticas negros 28 Apr. 1572 and 270–72 Que no den medicinas negros en las boticas ni entren en ellas 2 May 1572. The art required “mucha ciencia e abilidad e fieldad.”
Eguiguren, Alma mater, 256.
Salinas y Córdova, Memorial, 245; Cook, Indian Population, 151.
agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 20 Rodrigo Alonso Castillejo fols. 271v.–272 1 Jul. 1596. There are a large number of contracts for the assignment (asiento) of indigenous labourers for different tasks in agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 18, 19, 20. For the employment of Rodrigo de Vargas in the Hospital of Santa Ana see: agi Lima 122 fol. 36–37v. Información hecha…de la parte del hospital de los naturales 30 Oct. 1577; abpl 9086 Visita al Hospital de Santa Ana fols.104–105 no date [1588].
agnp Protocolos Siglo XVI 19 Rodrigo Alonso Castillejo fol. 575v. 16 Sep. 1593.
Lowry, “Forging an Indian Nation,” 176–80; Paul Charney, Indian Society in the Valley of Lima, Peru, 1532–1765 (Lanham, md: University Press of America, 2001), 20–21. In 1563 the hospital de los espanõles (San Andrés) was employing a yanacona at 1 real a day (agi Lima 131 Juan de Alvear en nombre del administrador y fundador del hospital despañoles 1563).
For Lowry, “Forging an Indian Nation,” 195, 200–203. For an example see agnp Protocolos Siglo xvi 51 Rodrigo Gómez Baeza fols. 285–285v. Blas de Medina concierto con Juan Real 8 Mar 1591.
abpl 9084 fols. 132–70 passim, fols. 241–242v. Libro de cuentas de gastos del hospital de Santa Ana año 1598. Charney (Indian Society, 21) gives wages of between 22 and 180 pesos a year for those contracted to work in agriculture.
abpl 9095 Real Provisión 31 Aug. 1617. The text is rather ambiguous since it could refer to the general treatment of Indians or to illnesses which were specific to them. It reads: “lamparones y otras enfermedades de los indios naturales.”
Salinas y Córdova, Memorial, 245.
There is evidence for the purchase of slaves by boticarios in the accounts of the slave trader, Manuel Bautista Pérez. Bernardo Gil bought a male slave from him in 1618 at the high cost of 655 pesos ( AGNP so co Ca. 2 doc. 8 Venta e rendimento de duzemtas e vimte e sete peças de escravos 1618) and in 1625 Juan Matías de Vera, at that time boticario to the convent de los Descalços, purchased one for 580 pesos ( AGNP so co Ca. 20 doc. 201 Venta de 76 pieças de esclavos 1625). In addition, the records of burials in the church of Sagrario attached to the cathedral, include payments, normally of 8 pesos, for the interment of adult slaves by Lima’s most prominent boticarios, including Diego de Tineo, Francisco de Alva and Juan de Bilbao (aal Libro Parroquial Sagrario Difuntos libros 1–3 1567–1609).
Libros de cabildos de Lima, 7: 549–550 Título familiar al bachiller Alba 21 Jan. 1574.
agnp Real Audiencia. Causas Civiles leg. 16 cuad. 81 fol. 7v.-8 Pleito…contra las bienes y herederos del bachiller Francisco de Alva, boticario morador en la Ciudad de los Reyes. 1576.
agnp Real Audiencia. Causas Civiles leg. 16 cuad. 81 fols. 343, 346, 770 Pleito…contra las bienes y herederos del bachiller Francisco de Alva, boticario morador en la Ciudad de los Reyes. 1576.
Bowser, African Slave, 102–104.
aal Testamentos 52–21 fols. 88–104 Testamento de Bernardo Gil, boticario 1662.
aal Testamentos 5 leg 1 fol. 13v–14, 179 Testamento de Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 1608. At this time the average cost of a newly-arrived slave was between 570 and 600 pesos (Newson and Minchin, From Capture to Sale, 228–29). In 1625 the boticario Bernardo Gil similarly purchased an African slave for 570 pesos (AGNP so co Ca. 20 doc. 201 Venta de 69 pieças de diferentes naciones que traxo Sebastian Duarte 1625). For the employment of Blacks in boticas in Cartagena see: Archivo General de la Nación, Colombia (hereafter agnc) Médicos y Abogados 6 fols. 944v–945 Martín Sánchez de Velasco…informe sobre sus visitas a las boticas de Cartagena 1634.
arjbm División 1, leg. 17 Prohemiales 8 Libro de examen de los simples medicinales Antonio de Robles Cornejo 1617.
Rabí Chara, Hospital de Santa Ana, 74. This is based on leg. 9086 in the abpl, from which documents relating to this visita have since been lost.
ahira Maldonado A-III-306 fol. 115 Libros de egresos e ingresos del hospital de San Andrés 1612.
abpl 9104 Libro de cuentas de gastos del hospital de Santa Ana 29 Aug. 1639.
Cussen, Black Saint, 55–56, 69–84.
For the general predisposition of Spaniards to spend large amounts of money on medicine see Lanning, Royal Protomedicato, 230. Colonial documents are replete with comments by officials on the state of their health.
aal Causas Civiles leg. 20 exp. 5 Causa de acreedores a los bienes del padre Juan de Vargas y Mendoza que fue de la catedral de Lima 1618.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XViI 1789 Sánchez Vadillo fols. 2068–2072 Inventario de bienes de Pedro de Bilbao 25 Aug. 1636.
agnp so co Ca. 44 doc. 394 fols. 772–775 Conciertos de curar de Tomé Cuaresma 1623, 1625 and 1630.
aal Causas Civiles leg. 43 exp. 2 Causa ejecutiva que sigue Luis de Molina Guzmán, cirujano, contra el Lic. Pedro Rodríguez Merchán 5 Oct. 1634.
agnp so co Ca. 27 doc. 277 Pedro de Bilbao contra Don Juan Arévalo de Espinosa 1629). For the bills incurred by Manuel Bautista Pérez with Pedro de Bilbao and Alonso de Carrión see: agnp so co Ca. 57 doc. 431 1629, 1635–1640.
For the bills incurred by Manuel Bautista Pérez with Pedro de Bilbao and Alonso de Carrión see: agnp so co Ca. 57 doc. 431 1629, 1635–1640. When the value of the medicines was assessed by the physicians Doctors Gerónimo Andrés Rocha, Juan de la Vega and Manuel Pérez they were judged to be worth about half the amount claimed.
aal Testamentos Leg 5 exp. 1 fols. 27v–35v. Testamento de Bartolomé Díaz Cabeza de Vaca 1608.
For seventeen cases between 1613 and 1651 see: aal Causas Civiles leg. 14 exp. 35, leg. 17 exp. 18, leg. 20 exp. 5, leg. 32 exp 14, leg. 33 exp. 19, leg. 39 exp 5, 16, leg. 41 exp. 15, leg. 42A exp. 2, 3, 10, leg. 48A exp. 11, 20, leg. 50 exp. 6, 16, 24, 38, leg. 60 exp.6. For overcharging see also: Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid ii/546 fols. 119–119v. Cuaderno de algunos papeles…Marqués de Montesclaros 1 Apr. 1612.
aal Causas Civiles leg. 48A exp. 20 Autos seguidos por Bernardo Gil, boticario, contra el Dr. Sebastián de Betanzos, clérigo de menores órdenes, por 150 pesos de medicinas adquiridas en su botica. 20 Oct. 1639.
agnp Real Audiencia Causas Civiles leg. 70 cuad. 263 Autos seguidos por Doña Francisca de Guzmán y Quintana contra Manuel Bautista Pérez sobre la redhibitoria de un esclavo 1626.
agnp so co 132–1199 Don Diego Laurencio Valenzuela administrador del patronato de Mateo Pastor de Velasco contra doña Beatriz de Garay 14 Jun. 1663.
aal Causas Civiles leg. 20 exp. 5 Causa de acreedores a los bienes del padre Juan de Vargas y Mendoza que fue de la catedral de Lima 1618.
See for example, aal Causas Civiles leg. 41 exp. 15 Autos ejecutivos seguidos por Gabriel de España, boticario, contra el Lic. Diego Cabrera albacea y tenedor de bienes del Lic. Francisco Juárez Salgado 1632; aal Causas Civiles leg. 42A exp. 3 Lima. Causa seguida por Bernardo Gil, contra los bienes que quedaron por fin y muerte del padre Luis Nieto Palomino 1632/1633; aal Causas Civiles leg. 31 exp. 14 Causa ejecutiva seguida por Antolín Reynoso, boticario, contra Alonso Martínez Pastrana, contador mayor, albacea y tenedor de bienes de don Juan Velásquez 1627. In this case they were signed by his sister or niece, witnesses differ, but the argument was that in his will he indicated in detail the debts he owed. See also agnp so co 125–1091 Gaspar de Calderón sobre medicinas que dio a Juan de Turiçes difunto 18 Sep. 1656.
agi Lima 112 Tristán Sánchez, contador, 1588.
agi Lima 97 Consulta a la Real Audiencia sobre las medicinas donadas a los conventos 12 May 1621; Carta de la Real Audiencia al rey sobre limosna de medicinas a los conventos 6 May 1622. Most likely Antonio de Robles was the physician Antonio de Robles Cornejo, who was the author of several manuscripts on the use of medicinal simples to be discussed in Chapter 5.
aal Monasterio de la Concepción leg. 2 exp.18 Causa seguida por Francisco de Sandoval, boticario de Lima, contra el Monasterio de la Concepción 1626–1629.
aal Monasterio de la Concepción leg. 3 exp. 19 Causa seguida por Francisco de Sandoval, boticario de Lima, contra el Monasterio de la Concepción por las medicinas que sacaron de su botica 1627.
aal Monasterio de la Concepción leg. 9 exp. 60 Causa seguida por Ignacio de Pujadas, hijo legítimo de Gerónimo de Pujadas, contra el Monasterio de la Concepción por 11,000 pesos de medicinas que le dio de su de su botica y le han quedado debiendo 1651.
Arnold J. Bauer, “The Church in the Economy of Spanish America: Censos and Depósitos in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63(4)(1983): 715–17; Brian R. Hamnett, “Church Wealth in Peru: Estates and Loans in the Archdiocese of Lima in the Seventeenth Century,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 10 (1973): 115–16.
agi Lima 215 N 6 R 1 fol. 3 Informaciones del monasterio de la Concepción de Lima 18 Mar 1603.
agi Lima 215 N 6 R 1 fol. 11v. Informaciones del monasterio de la Concepción de Lima 18 Mar 1603.
This excluded the cost of other medicines that had been supplied previously.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XViI 1789 Sánchez Vadillo fols. 2068–2072 Inventario de bienes de Pedro de Bilbao 25 Aug. 1636.
agnp Protocolos Siglo XViI 1789 Sánchez Vadillo fols. 1375–1378v Alonso de Carrión to Juan de Sanmillán 28 Jul. 1636.
Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal’s Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of the Spanish Empire, 1492–1640 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 84–86.
Brockliss and Jones, Medical World, 324; Robert Ralley, “Medical Economies in Fifteenth Century England,” in Medicine and the Market in England and its Colonies, c.1450–1850, eds. Mark Jenner and Patrick Wallis (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2007), 29–30.
De Vos, “Art of Pharmacy,” 185–86.
For Mexico City see De Vos, “Art of Pharmacy,” 171–81.