Bartolomé de Medina

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Bartolomé de Medina (1527-1580), Spanish theologian and mining specialist, was born in Medina de Rioseco, Spain in 1527. A member of the Dominican Order and a student of Francisco de Vitoria, he was professor of theology at the University of Salamanca and a member of the School of Salamanca. He is best known as the originator of the doctrine of probabilism in moral theology, which holds that one may follow a course of action that has some probability, even if the opposite is more probable. He died at Salamanca in 1581.

A completely different person—though even confused by Enc.Brit. 2010 s.v. Bartolomé de Medina—is another Bartolomé de Medina, businessman of Sevilla, who learned from a certain German Leonard the use of mercury and hereby improved the process of amalgamization of silver with mercury while mining in Mexico (1554?/1557?), especially in Pachuca de Soto (50 miles north of Mexico City), hereby revolutionizing the extraction of silver for more than two and a half centuries. This "dry" method of amalgamating mercury and silver, the so-called "patio process", seems partly have been in use by the native Indians too. It avoided—due to the circumstances in the tree- and waterless highlands—the large quantities of wood and water which were necessary and in great quantities available in Europe.

References

Article on Bartholomé de Medina in Catholic Encyclopedia (1911)
J. Franklin, The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 74-76.

Persondata
Name	Medina, Bartolome de
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Date of birth	1527
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Date of death	1581
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