{ "id": "protomedicato-de-las-indias", "type": "entity", "name": "The Protomedicato of the Indies (Recopilación, libro V, título 6)", "summary": "The law that licensed medicine in Spanish America. Its opening piece is a 1570 instruction sending protomédicos across the Atlantic with orders to take the testimony of every physician, surgeon and herbalist, Spanish and Indian alike, to trial the remedies and to write the natural history of the province. The same título makes the professors of medicine at Mexico and Lima the licensing authority — and exempts Indian towns from the licensing rule.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "medicine", "science", "colonial-law", "colonial-institutions", "universities", "americas", "spanish-empire", "indigenous-knowledge" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "universities-of-lima-and-mexico" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "mutis-botanical-expedition" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "balmis-expedition" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "monardes-historia-medicinal-1580" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "unanue-observaciones-clima-de-lima" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "alzate-gacetas-de-literatura-1788" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "lopez-de-hinojosos-suma-de-cirugia-1578" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "orden-hospitalaria-de-belen" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "mercurio-volante-1772" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "unanue-guia-del-peru-1793" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "real-expedicion-botanica-de-nueva-espana" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "antivenereal-trials-san-andres-1790" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cataract-surgery-in-spanish-america" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "espejo-reflexiones-viruelas-1785" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "carlos-juan-finlay" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "medicinal-plant-trade-from-spanish-america-1717-1815" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cocoliztli-epidemic-of-1576" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "orden-hospitalaria-de-san-juan-de-dios" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "smallpox-vaccine-in-spanish-america-before-balmis" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "guayaco-palo-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "mondones-petroleum-case-1585" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "bravo-opera-medicinalia-1570" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "de-curandis-hominum-morbis" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "hospital-real-de-san-jose-de-los-naturales" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "pedro-lopez-hospital-de-la-epifania-1582" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "medical-services-of-the-spanish-armed-forces-1665-1700" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "keeping-the-vaccine-alive-in-spanish-america" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "farfan-tractado-brebe-de-medicina-1592" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "practica-y-observaciones-de-albeyteria-1680" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "llave-de-albeyteria-1734" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "bando-de-curacion-de-heridos-1777" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "hospital-returns-in-print-1787-1794" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "hospital-de-jesus-nazareno" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "hospital-de-san-lazaro-de-mexico" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "real-colegio-de-cirugia-de-cadiz" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "extramural-cemeteries-in-the-indies" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "villalba-epidemiologia-espanola-1803" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "universidad-de-san-geronimo-de-la-habana" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "esteyneffer-florilegio-medicinal-1712" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "escuela-de-medicina-y-cirugia-de-buenos-aires" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "universidad-de-san-carlos-de-guatemala" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cisneros-sitio-naturaleza-y-propriedades-1618" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "jose-manuel-davalos" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "arias-de-benavides-secretos-de-chirurgia-1567" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "real-anfiteatro-de-anatomia-de-mexico" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "lopez-tesoro-de-medicinas-1708" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "enfermos-en-las-armadas-y-flotas-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "piedra-bezar-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cementerios-extramuros-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "visita-de-la-tierra-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "operacion-cesarea-en-nueva-espana" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "medina-cartilla-de-matronas-1750" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "division-de-mexico-en-quarteles-1782" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "limpieza-y-empedrado-de-la-ciudad-de-mexico" } ], "questions": [ "What was the Protomedicato of the Indies?", "Who was allowed to practise medicine in colonial Spanish America?", "Did Spanish law recognise indigenous medicine?", "Why did Spain send physicians to survey American plants?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "The título is Recopilación libro V, título VI, \"DE LOS PROTOMÉDICOS, MÉDICOS, CIRUJANOS, Y BOTICARIOS\". Its first law, margin \"D. Felipe II en Madrid á 11 de Enero de 1570\", is not a rule but a set of standing instructions: desiring that its vassals enjoy long life and perfect health, the crown recites that it has founded chairs of medicine and philosophy in the principal universities of the Indies, and resolves to send protomédicos generales to the provinces of the Indies and their adjacent islands, who are to have the first grade and superintendence over the rest.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "The instruction is, in substance, an order to survey American medicine and its practitioners. On arrival the protomédico is to inform himself where all the \"Médicos, Cirujanos, Herbolarios, Españoles, é Indios, y otras personas curiosas en esta facultad\" are to be found, and to take from those who seem able to understand and know something \"relacion de ellos generalmente de todas las yerbas, árboles, plantas, y semillas medicinales, que hubiere en la Provincia donde se hallaren\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "The method prescribed is empirical and is spelled out. He is further to inform himself of the experience had of these things, of their use, faculty and quantity, and of how the medicines are grown — whether in dry places or humid, and whether the trees and plants have different species — writing down the notes and marks of each; he is to make \"experiencia, y prueba de todo lo posible\", and where that is not possible to inform himself from expert persons and obtain certificates of the truth; to send back to Spain any medicines, herbs or seeds notable in those parts and not already here; and to write \"la historia natural\" with good order, concert and clarity.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "The office was territorially confined from the start. Whoever bore the title of protomédico general was to have his limits and terms marked; he was obliged to reside in one of the cities where there was an audiencia and chancillería, to exercise the office in that city and five leagues around it, not to go outside them, not to use jurisdiction or issue summonses beyond the five leagues, and not to license the people of those provinces unless they came of their own will to the place where he resided — though he might examine and license those who did come.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "In 1646 the licensing power was handed to the universities. Ley iij, \"D. Felipe IIII en Zaragoza á 9 de Junio de 1646\", unites and annexes the protomedicato of New Spain to the chair of Prima de Medicina of the University of Mexico, extending its jurisdiction to Puebla de los Ángeles and the port of Veracruz, and the protomedicato of Peru, Panamá and Portobelo to the chair of Prima de Medicina of the University of Lima; the holders of those chairs are protomédicos for as long as they hold them, preside at the juntas and concurrencias, and do everything else pertaining to the exercise.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "The stated purpose of that union is a career incentive rather than a medical argument: the crown grants the pre-eminence and quality \"para que por este medio se alienten todos á seguir la facultad y trabajar y conseguir el mayor puesto de su profesion\", and orders that the professor take his title as protomédico from the viceroy and carry royal confirmation of it within a set time.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.8 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "The licensing rule itself is ley iiij, \"Que ninguno cure de Medicina, ni Cirugía, sin grado, y licencia\", margin \"El mismo en Madrid á 13 de Septiembre de 1621, y 20 de Agosto de 1648\": no person of any kind is to be allowed in the Indies to practise medicine or surgery without the degrees and licence of the protomédico that the laws require, proved by legitimate documents; the fiscales of the audiencias are to demand it, and in the residencias the ministers are to be charged with any omission in enforcing it.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "The same law then bounds itself in its closing clause, and that clause is the most consequential sentence in the título: \"y así se guarde en quanto á los Lugares de Españoles, y no de Indios\". The licensing monopoly was ordered kept in Spanish towns and expressly not in Indian ones. Read at its face the code leaves indigenous healing outside the crown's medical monopoly; what it does not say is whether that was a concession, an admission of impracticability, or simply a limit on where the crown's officers could reach, and the pages read give no ground to choose between them.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "Castilian disqualifications were carried over wholesale. Ley v, \"El Emperador D. Cárlos y la Emperatriz Gobernadora en Madrid á 15 de Octubre de 1535\", provides that those forbidden by the laws and pragmáticas of Castile to be physicians, surgeons and apothecaries carry the same prohibition in the Indies, and that none may style himself \"Doctor, Maestro ó Bachiller, sin ser exâminado, y graduado en Universidad aprobada\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c10", "text": "Examination had to be in person. Ley vj, \"D. Felipe II en el Pardo á 12 de Febrero de 1579\", forbids the protomédicos to license in the Indies any \"Médico, Cirujano, Boticario, Barbero, Algebrista\" — the last being the bone-setter — or others exercising the faculty of medicine and surgery, without their appearing personally before them to be examined and being found able and sufficient; and no licence or visitation of an apothecary's shop is to carry more in fees than those charged in Castile.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c11", "text": "Pharmacy was inspected by the highest officers of the colony. Ley vij, \"El Emperador D. Cárlos y la Emperatriz Gobernadora en Valladolid á 10 de Abril de 1538\", orders viceroys, presidents and governors to have the apothecaries' shops of their districts visited from time to time, and where corrupt medicines are found to have them spilled and thrown away so that they cannot be used again, \"por el daño que pueden causar\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c12", "text": "A second class of protomédico is recognised and subordinated. Ley ij, margin \"D. Cárlos II y la Reyna Gobernadora\", requires the protomédicos who have their residence in the Indies and are not of those referred to in the preceding law to keep the royal laws in the examination of physicians and surgeons, in the visitation of the apothecaries and in everything else pertaining to their ministry, and charges the viceroys, presidents and audiencias to see them kept.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.8 }, { "id": "c13", "text": "What the code proves and what it does not are different things. It establishes what was ordered and when, and its repetitions are evidence of non-compliance: the licensing rule had to be reissued in 1648 in the same words as 1621, and the ban on unexamined licences implies unexamined licences. The pages read carry no register of protomédicos appointed, no count of licences, no natural history actually delivered under the 1570 instruction, and nothing at all about how indigenous practitioners fared in practice. Any claim about what the Protomedicato did, as opposed to what it was told to do, needs archival evidence not consulted here.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-indias-1791-t2" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "The Protomedicato appears in general accounts as a licensing board and little else, and the 1570 instruction that opens its título is almost never quoted despite being the legal act behind Spain's medical surveys of the Americas. It is quoted here from a digitised printing of the code: the order to take testimony from herbalists \"Españoles, é Indios\", to record how each plant grows and in what soil, to make trial of everything possible, and to write the natural history of the province. Beside it the two facts that complicate the story in both directions — the 1646 union of the office with the medical chairs of Mexico and Lima, and the clause restricting the whole licensing regime to Spanish towns and not Indian ones — each with the monarch, place and date printed in its margin.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-08-09", "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/protomedicato-de-las-indias", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/protomedicato-de-las-indias.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "The Protomedicato of the Indies (Recopilación, libro V, título 6)", "description": "The law that licensed medicine in Spanish America. Its opening piece is a 1570 instruction sending protomédicos across the Atlantic with orders to take the testimony of every physician, surgeon and herbalist, Spanish and Indian alike, to trial the remedies and to write the natural history of the province. The same título makes the professors of medicine at Mexico and Lima the licensing authority — and exempts Indian towns from the licensing rule.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/protomedicato-de-las-indias", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-08-09", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias … Quarta impresión — Tomo Segundo (Libros IIII a VIII)", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt41mzCz8zEC&pg=PP5" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "The Protomedicato of the Indies (Recopilación, libro V, título 6)" } }