Nicolás Monardes

Nicolás Bautista Monardes (1493 – 10 October 1588) was a Spanish physician and botanist.

The genus Monarda was named for him.

Monardes published several books of varying importance. In Diálogo llamado pharmacodilosis (1536), he examines humanism and suggests studying several classical authors, principally Pedanius Dioscorides. He discusses the importance of Greek and Arab medicine in De Secanda Vena in pleuriti Inter Grecos et Arabes Concordia (1539). De Rosa et partibus eius (1540) is about roses and citrus fruits. It is known that Monardes also believed that tobacco smoke was an infallible cure for everything.

Monardes' most significant and well known work was Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, published in three parts under varying titles (in 1565, 1569 and completed in 1574; unchanged reprint in 1580). This was translated into Latin by Charles de l'Écluse and into English by John Frampton with the title "Joyfull News out of the New Found World".

List of Monardes' works

• 1536: Diálogo llamado pharmacodilosis
• 1539: De Secanda Vena in pleuriti Inter Grecos et Arabes Concordia
• 1540: De Rosa et partibus eius
• 1565: ...
• 1569: Dos libros, el uno que trata de todas las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven al uso de la medicina, y el otro que trata de la piedra bezaar, y de la yerva escuerçonera. Sevilla: Hernando Diaz
• 1571: Segunda parte del libro des las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven al uso de la medicina; do se trata del tabaco, y de la sassafras, y del carlo sancto, y de otras muchas yervas y plantas, simientes, y licores que agora nuevamente han venido de aqulellas partes, de grandes virtudes y maravillosos effectos. Sevilla: Alonso Escrivano, 1571
• 1574: Primera y segunda y tercera partes de la historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales, que sirven en medicina; Tratado de la piedra bezaar, y dela yerva escuerçonera; Dialogo de las grandezas del hierro, y de sus virtudes medicinales; Tratado de la nieve, y del beuer frio. Sevilla: Alonso Escrivano
• 1580: Reprint of the 1574 publication. Sevilla: Fernando Diaz

Auction Records

On September 17, 2009 Swann Galleries auctioned a third English edition of Joyfull Newes out of the New-Found Worlde, London, 1596, for $13,200—an auction record for the book.

Bibliography

• Boxer, C. R. (1963), Two pioneers of tropical medicine: Garcia d'Orta and Nicolás Monardes, Wellcome Historical Medical Library 
• Guerra, Francisco (1961), Nicolás Bautista Monardes, su vida y su obra, ca. 1493-1588