Natural knowledge and medical remedies in the book of secrets: uses and appropriations in Juan de Cárdenas' Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias (Mexico, 1591)

Abstract

The main interest of the books of secrets had an enormous influence on the reading public in Europe during the long century 1550 to 1650. In the present case, the question that we shall try to answer is that of how this type of scientific literature was modelled in slightly different ways in the colonial society of New Spain, to which Cárdenas' target audience belonged. It was a community of readers that led Cárdenas to apply a particular adaptation of the genre to the colonial context in which he happened to live.