“Tratado de la piedra Bezoar, i de la yerba escuerzonera.” (Treatise on bezoar stone, and on the poison of the toad.)
“Diálogo de las grandezas del hierro, i de sus virtudes medicinales.” (Treatise on the importance of iron and its medicinal properties.)
“Tratado de la nieve, i del beber frío.” (Treatise on snow and on cold drinks.)
The Historia Medicinal, rendered Monardes celebrated throughout Europe. It was translated into Italian by Anibal Briganti di Chieti, an eminent physician of the time, and the translation was published in Venice, in the year 1576. Carlo Clusio transferred it to the Latin tongue, and published it at Antwerp, in 1574. An English translation by Mr. Frampton, appeared in 1577, and a French one by Antonio Collin, in 1619.
In the preface Monardes makes the following observations: “From the new regions, new kingdoms, and new provinces, which Spaniards have discovered, they have brought home with them new medicines and new remedies for the cure of many diseases, which if neglected, would prove incurable. These things, though some few persons are acquainted with them, are not known to every one; for which reason I propose to treat in this work of those substances, the products of our Western Indies,[66] which are employed in medicine as remedies against the diseases and infirmities to which the human frame is liable. By this means I may render no small service and benefit to my contemporaries, as well as to future generations, and my labours will serve as a groundwork for those who may follow me, and who may add their increased knowledge and experience to mine. This city of Seville, being the port for vessels coming from the Western Indies, the products of those regions are brought hither before they reach other parts of Spain, so that we obtain here the earliest knowledge and experience of them. In addition to my own experience in the use of those articles in the forty years during which I have practised medicine in this city, I have carefully collected information from those who have brought them to Spain, and I have with great assiduity and attention observed their effects on many and various individuals.”
Though the works whose titles are quoted, are the most celebrated writings of Monardes, yet he is the author of many others on the subject of Medicine. In the Biblioteca Hispana, the learned Nicolás Antonio, gives a list of his writings.
In the Museum of Gonzalo Argote de Molina, at Seville, there is a portrait of Monardes; and under a drawing of an Armadillo, in the same collection, Monardes himself wrote some lines of which the following is a translation:—“This drawing is from an animal in the Museum of Gonzalo de Molina of this city; which museum contains a great number of books on various subjects, together with many kinds of animals, birds, &c., from Eastern and Western India and other parts of the world: also a great quantity of coins, antique stones, and different kinds of arms which have been collected together by dint of much curious research and liberal expense.”
The Museum of Argote de Molina, at Seville, was one of the first institutions of its kind in Europe, and at that time probably the only one existing in Spain.
(D).
“Now, had it so happened that instead of going from Madrid to Toledo, we had been journeying from Toledo to Madrid, I could have shewn you two excellent books, which have been sent to me as a present from Señor Arcediano. These books are so full of knowledge, and they treat of so many things that are or may be in this world, &c. (Page 109).”