MEDICAL REFERENCES IN BERNAL DIAZ’S ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF (1517-1521)

By WYNDHAM B. BLANTON, M.D.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

ernal dia z del cas a picture not without interest to those TILLO in the pride of his delving in the history of medicine in strength and the lust of his the two Americas before and at the time young manhood was a soldier of the Conquest. under “that valiant and doughty CapEbe- expedition under the command Btain" Don Hernando Cortes in the years of Cortes was the third venture in ex- 1519 to 1521. As an old man, in lieu ploration in which Diaz had taken part. of a legacy, he wrote down for his chil- It set sail from Santiago de on dren all his memories of men and he- November 18, 1518 and arrived in the roes. The resulting “True History of river Grijala on March 22, 1519. The the Conquest of New " is the full- first battle was fought three days later est and most valuable contemporary ac- with the people of Tabasco, who re- count of these stirring days in Mexico. sisted their landing by force of arms. Elie manuscript is still preserved in the Ehis initial encounter did not begin archives of the capital of . Of auspiciously. the many editions and translations the "When the horses were brought on latest and best is that of Serior Don Ge- shore," Diaz wrote, “they were very stiff naro Garcia. Its English translation by and afraid to move, for they had been A. P. Maudslay appeared in 1928 and many days on board ship, but the next is the source of the present paper. day they moved quite freely.” In Garcia’s estimation Diaz disclosed Elie men were in a worse plight: in his story “a very scrupulous moral At that time it happened that six or sense, a fair amount of learning, accu- seven soldiers, young men and otherwise rate philosophy, and a piety out of the in good health, suffered from pains in their common." It is, however, not with his loins, so that they could not stand on their character that we are concerned, but feet and had to be carried on men’s backs. with his references to things medical, We did not know what this sickness came for from them we get a glimpse of the from, some say that they fell ill on account Spanish and Indian medicine of his of the [quilted] cotton armor which they time in the New World. In the course never took off, but wore day and night, of his narrative there are many medical and because in Cuba they had lived dain- references. There are accounts of tily and were not used to hard work, so in wounds, not only of his own, but also of the heat they fell ill. Cortes ordered them those of his companions, and there are not to remain on land but to be taken at once 011 board ship. descriptions of the sicknesses, smallpox, fevers, chills, cachexias, jaundice, and Nor was the battle without its casual- ascites that plagued the invading force. ties on both sides: “. . . we bound up Taken together these references make the hurts of the wounded with cloths,’’ Diaz continued, “for we had nothing supply of poultry and little dogs in the else, and we doctored the horses by houses.” searing their wounds with the fat from On September 5, laboring under the body of a dead Indian which we cut great disadvantages, they again fought up to get out the fat, and we went to the Tlaxcalans. look at the dead lying on the plain and “All the plain was swarming with there were more than eight hundred of warriors and we stood four hundred them, the greater number killed by men in number,” Diaz claimed, “and thrusts, the others by the cannon, mus- of those many sick and wounded.” kets and cross-bows, and many were “In this engagement, one soldier was stretched on the ground half dead.” killed, and sixty were wounded, and all Fhe tise of human fat in the care of the horses were wounded as well. They the wounded is frequently mentioned gave me two wounds,” he recorded, as if it were the most logical and mat- “one in the head with a stone, and one ter-of-course substitute for the usual oil in the thigh with an arrow; but this treatment of the day. did not prevent me from fighting, and Re-embarking, the expedition sailed keeping watch, and helping our soldiers, north to arrive at San Juan de Ulna and all the soldiers who were wounded (Vera Cruz) on Holy Thursday, April did the same; for if the wounds were 21. Going ashore, the adventurers es- not very dangerous, we had to fight and tablished a permanent base from which keep guard, wounded as we were, for the march to Mexico was begun. The few of us remained unwounded.” wounds and illnesses that hampered and When they had returned to camp at times reduced their fighting strength they “doctored all the wounded with to an alarming level are graphically the fat of an Indian. It was cold comfort described. to be even without salt or oil with In their advance from the sea coast which to cure the wounded. There was towards the interior, their first bloody another want from which we suffered,” opposition came from the Tlaxcalan he added, “and it was a severe one— Indians. After the fight on September and that was clothes with which to 1, Diaz wrote: “We slept near a stream, cover ourselves, for such a cold wind and with the grease from a fat Indian came from the snow mountains, that whom we had killed and cut open, we it made us shiver, for our lances and dressed our wounds, for we had no oil, muskets and crossbows made a poor and we supped very well on some dogs covering.” which the Indians breed. . . .” Today, as then, the high altitude of fhe next day the battle was renewed the mountainous part of Mexico, and and won. “From the field of battle,” the cold nights following hot days, offer he recorded, “we withdrew the whole a health hazard to the traveler who can force to some Cues which were strong be more careful of his clothing and diet and lofty like a fortress. We dressed the than could these pioneer warriors. wounded men, who numbered fifteen, Then the Tlaxcalans made a night with the fat of an Indian. One man died attack and Diaz painted a dark picture of his wounds. We also doctored four of the Spaniards’ situation. or five horses which had received "When we awoke,” he said, “and saw wounds, and we rested and supped very how all of us were wounded, even well that night, for we found a good with two or three wounds, and how weary we were and how others were tall these people had been they brought sick and clothed in rags, and knew that us a leg bone of one of them which was Xicotenga was always after us, and al- very thick and the height of a man of ready over forty-five of our soldiers had ordinary stature, and that was the bone been killed in battle, or succumbed to from the hip to the knee. I measured disease and chills, and another dozen myself against it and it was as tall as I of them were ill. and our Captain Cor- am although I am of fair size. They tes himself was suffering from fever as brought other pieces of bone like the well as the Padre de la Merced, and first but they were already eaten away what with our labours and the weight and destroyed by the soil. We were all of our arms which we always carried amazed at seeing those bones and felt on our backs, and other hardships from sure that there must have been giants chills and the want of salt, for we could in this country, and our Captain Cortes never find any to eat, we began to won- said to us that it would be well to send der what would be the outcome of all that great bone to Castile so that His this fighting. . . .” Majesty might see it, so we sent it with Cortes continued sick, “suffering the first of our agents who went there.” from tertian fever." A little later after This account reminds one of the the capitulation of the Tlaxcalans it is stories of the Patagonian giants whom again recorded that he “wanted to take Magellan claimed to have seen when some rest, for he was ill with fever." he rounded the tip of South America About this time Xicotenga with Ca- and after whom he named the country. ciques from the capital of Tlaxcala ar- The arrival in Mexico of the Span- rived on a mission of peace. This fa- iard Panfilo de Narvaez with another mous Indian chieftain is described in army, and his battle with Cortes over the following words: “Xicotenga was their respective rights to the fruits of tall, broad shouldered and well made; the conquest then in process, nearly his face was long, pock-marked and proved the undoing of the whole ex- coarse, he was about thirty-five years pedition. Cortes’s triumph over his old and of a dignified deportment.” fellow countrymen was one of the most Sickness continued to afflict leaders dramatic of all his achievements. In a and men. When Cortes ordered the battle which Spaniard fought against erection of an altar soon after this, "It Spaniard, Diaz tells us that: “. . . as was the priest Juan Diaz who said the Narvaez was very badly wounded and Mass, for the Padre de la Merced was had lost an eye, he asked leave of San- ill with fever and very feeble." doval for his surgeon named Maestre In spite of difficulties that would Juan, whom he had brought in his have defeated a less determined band, fleet, to attend to his eye and to the the Spaniards finally conquered the other captains who were wounded, and Tlaxcalans and left them no recourse permission was given.” but to become their allies. Then these This is the only record in Diaz’s ac- new found friends passed the time by count of a physician being with any of boasting of a race of giants that for- the troops sent to Mexico during the merly inhabited the land. Very graphic period of the conquest. He makes no were their stories and Diaz remembered mention of trained medical help among them all in after years: Cortes’s forces. “So that we could see how huge and Narvaez’s arrival was followed by other dire consequences: “Let us re- his own father, and he put on mourn- turn now to Narvaez,” wrote Diaz, “and ing of black cloth, and so did many of a black man whom he brought covered our Captains and soldiers.” with smallpox, and a very black affair Diaz mentioned another smallpox it was for New Spain, for it was owing victim incidentally in recording the to him that the whole country was Indians’ attitude to the invaders: stricken and filled with it, from which “. . . the people of Chalco said they there was great mortality, for according wanted to go with him [Sandoval] to to what the Indians said they had never see and speak to Malchine [Cortes] and had such a disease, and, as they did not take with them the two sons of the understand it, they bathed very often, Lord of that province who had died of and on that account a great number of smallpox a few days before, and before them died; so that dark as was the lot dying had charged all his chieftains of Narvaez, still blacker was the death and elders to take his sons to see the of so many persons who were not Chris- Captain, so that by his hand they might tians.” be installed Lords of Chalco, and that If it be true that smallpox was in- all should endeavour to become sub- troduced by Narvaez we are led to won- jects of the Great King of the Teules, der how Diaz could describe Xicotenga, for it was quite true that his ancestors the Tlaxcalan chieftain, before Nar- had told him that men with beards who vaez’s arrival, as having a pock-marked came from the direction of the sunrise face. would govern these lands, and from Smallpox may have had more to do what he had seen, we were those men.” with the fall of the vast Indian king- After “Noche Triste,” as the sad dom than we have been wont to realize. night is called when Cortes and his After Montezuma was stoned by his followers were routed from Mexico people because of his submission to City with such appalling losses, and Cortes, and after his kinsman and suc- just prior to their final siege of the cessor, Cuitlahuac, had beaten back city and their ultimate victory, rein- the Spaniards, the disease must have forcements came to them in small and spread among the inhabitants, because pitiful driblets. Of one such group Diaz Diaz recorded that it soon became nec- tells us with the high good humor of essary to raise up to the throne “an- the backward look: “Their Captain other Prince, because the Prince who was a soldier named Lencero, as they had driven us out of Mexico had died arrived at Tlaxcala thin and ill, we of Smallpox.” Cuitlahuac was followed often for our own diversion and to by Guatemoc, noblest and bravest of all make fun of them spoke of ‘Lencero’s Aztec heroes. Help,’ for of the seven that came five Smallpox attacked friendly Indians had liver complaint and were covered as well as hostile. It was responsible with boils and the other two were for the death of one of the Spaniards’ swelled out with great bellies.” most valued allies: “When we arrived Later he wrote: “While we were sta- at Tlaxcala our great friend Mase Escasi tioned at Segura de la Frontera, letters had died of smallpox,” wrote our reached Cortes to say that one of the chronicler. “We all grieved over his ships which Francisco de Gara, the death very much and Cortes said he Governor of Jamaica, had sent to form felt it as though it were the death of a settlement at Panuco, had come into port, and that her Captain was named to have maintained not far from his Camargo, and that she brought over capital at the beginning of the con- sixty soldiers, all of them ill, and very quest: “We must not forget the gardens yellow and with swollen bellies. . . . of flowers and sweet-scented trees,” he It was because they had to endure the wrote enthusiastically, “and the many constant attacks of the Indians of Pa- kinds that there were of them, and the nuco, that they had nothing to eat arrangement of them and the walks, and arrived so thin and yellow and and the ponds and tanks of fresh water swollen. These soldiers and their cap- where the water entered at one end tain came on very slowly (for they and flowed out of the other; and the could not walk, owing to their weak- baths which he had in them, and the ness) to the town of Frontera. When variety of small birds that nested in Cortes saw them so swollen and yellow the branches, and the medicinal and he knew that they were no good as useful herbs that were in the gardens.” fighting men and that we should hardly The city market place where all be able to cure them, and he treated manner of goods and chattels, fruits them with much consideration. I fancy and vegetables and herbs were sold, that Camargo died very soon, but I do was an astonishing sight to the Span- not well remember what became of iards. “Let us go on,” wrote Diaz, “and him, and many others of them died, and speak of those who sold beans and sage then for a joke we gave the others a and other vegetables and herbs in an- nickname, and called them the ‘ver- other part . . . and yellow ointments digris bellies’ for they were the colour and things of that sort are sold by them- of death and their bellies were so selves, and much cochineal is sold un- swollen.” der the arcades which are in that great At the time of the conquest, the market place, and there are many ven- City of Mexico was a magnificent city dors of herbs.” of stone and plaster built in the midst Even to this day in the markets of of a great lake and connected with the modern Mexico one finds booth after surrounding country only by causeways. booth lined from floor to ceiling with Against its water supply at Chapultepec neatly tied bunches of every conceiv- Cortes directed one of his first attacks: able herb for sale. Each will have its “As soon as these squadrons had been therapeutic indications explained and put to flight,” Diaz recorded, “we broke dosage described, if the customer de- the conduits through which the water sires, by the Indian in charge. flowed to the city, and from that time Malingering is not a new disease of onwards it never flowed into Mexico the modern world. In this old war both so long as the war lasted.” Indians and Spaniards resorted to the The resulting insanitary conditions, ruse of feigning sickness. Montezuma added to the imported epidemic of did not meet Cortes on the road to smallpox, were on the side of the Span- welcome him to Mexico “. . . it is on iards and in the last analysis must have account of ill health,” explained his been a potent factor in their conquest messengers, “that he did not do so, and of a host that outnumbered them over- not from want of very good will which whelmingly. he bears towards you.” And Salvatierra, Diaz described the extensive botan- most boastful among Narvaez’s forces ical gardens which Montezuma is said before his defeat, when all was lost promptly plead: “that he was very sick mercies he vouchsafed us every day, at the stomach and was no good for for the wounds healed rapidly. anything.” “Wounded and tied up in rags as Naturally all sorts of injuries were we were we had to fight from morning suffered by the invaders in the course until night, for if the wounded had of their stay in Mexico. Among those remained in camp without coming out described is a cavalryman’s fall: “Dur- to fight, there would not have been ing that pursuit,” Diaz wrote on one twenty men in each company well occasion, “owing to the badness of the enough to go out.” road, the horse of a cavalryman, named Secondary infections must have ling- Gonzalo Dominguez, fell with his rider ered as the result of these wounds to beneath him, and the man died from make life miserable. On one occasion his injuries within a few days.” Montezuma, accompanied by Cortes Reference is made to all manner of and a number of his soldiers ascended hardships endured by the Spaniards: the Great Cue of Tlaltelolco. When the “Water was found in the houses, but visit was over, none too soon for Diaz not very much of it, and owing to the who recorded that in the slaughter hunger and thirst that they suffered houses of Spain there was “not such some of the soldiers ate some plants another stench,” all proceeded “down like thistles which hurt their tongues the steps, and as they numbered one and mouths.” This plant is said to have hundred and fourteen, and as some of been the prickly pear, a species of cac- our soldiers were suffering from tu- tus. mours and abscesses, their legs were The treatment given the average tired by the descent.” soldier in Cortes’s outfit for wounds As in all wars, sickness as well as received in battle was of the crudest wounds accounted for many casualties. sort. First aid could never have brought Among the diseases which seem to have comfort in those days. “While we were involved the lungs were those which Diaz described towards the end of the treating the wounds by searing them campaign: “. . . many of our soldiers with oil,” Diaz wrote of one occasion, were wounded and ill, and eight had “there was a great noise of yells, trum- died of pains in the back, and from pets, shells, and drums from some of throwing up clotted blood mixed with the streets on the mainland, and along mud from the mouth and nose, and it them came a host of Mexicans into the was from the fatigue of always wear- court where we were tending the ing armour on our backs, and from the wounded, and they let fly such a num- everlasting going on expeditions and ber of javelins and stones that they from the dust that we swallowed.” at once wounded many of our soldiers.” Diaz himself, though often wounded, “When we drew off in the night,” was in practically every skirmish of the he wrote of another occasion, “we war. He wrote of one occasion: “I did treated our wounds by searing them not go on that expedition as I was very with oil, and a soldier named Juan ill with fever and was vomiting blood, Catalan blessed them for us and made and thank God I got well for they bled charms, and truly we found that our me.” And of another expedition he Lord Jesus Christ was pleased to give wrote: “The reason why I did not go us strength in addition to the many . . . was because I had been badly wounded by a spear-thrust in the throat, terrifying, and we all looked towards and was in danger of dying from it, the lofty Cue where they were being and I still bear the scar.” sounded, and saw that our comrades The Aztecs and the other Indians whom they had captured when they who inhabited New Spain, from the defeated Cortes were being carried by number of human sacrifices they of- force up the steps, and they were tak- fered daily on their altars, and their ing them to be sacrificed. When they manner of slaying the victims and dis- got them up to a small square in front membering the bodies, must have had of the oratory, where their accursed a pretty good idea of human anatomy. idols are kept, we saw them place “Every day we saw sacrified before us plumes on the heads of many of them three, four, or five Indians,” Diaz and with things like fans in their hands wrote, “whose hearts were offered to the they forced them to dance before idols and their blood plastered on the Huichilobos, and after they had danced walls, and the feet, arms, and legs of they immediately placed them on their the victims were cut off and eaten, just backs on some rather narrow stones as in our country we eat beef brought which had been prepared as places for from the butchers. I even believe that sacrifice, and with stone knives they they sell it by retail in the tianguez as sawed open their chests and drew out they call their markets.” their palpitating hearts and offered These Indians have been credited them to the idols that were there, and likewise with commendable surgical they kicked the bodies down the steps, knowledge, but for the most part their and Indian butchers who were waiting use of their obsidian knives causes in below cut off the arms and feet and our minds only a revulsion of horror. flayed the skin off the faces, and pre- Diaz wrote: “. . . you have already pared it afterwards like glove leather heard me say, that when they sacrifice with the beards on, and kept those for a wretched Indian they saw open the the festivals when they celebrated chest with stone knives and hasten to drunken orgies, and the flesh they ate tear out the palpitating heart and in chilmole. In the same way they sac- blood, and offer it to their Idols, in rificed all the others and ate the legs whose name the sacrifice is made. Then and arms and offered the hearts and they cut off the thighs, arms, and head blood to their idols, as I have said, and and eat the former at feasts and ban- the bodies, that is their entrails and quets, and the head they hang up on feet, they threw to the tigers and lions some beams, and the body of the man which they kept in the house of the sacrificed is not eaten but given to . . . fierce animals.” carnivores which I have spoken about It requires little imagination to feel in an earlier chapter.” the rage that must have consumed Such an account as this makes one Cortes’s men when they saw their fel- thankful that the Indians’ school of low Spaniards taken in battle being anatomy, handmaid of their degenerate offered to heathen idols: “. . . again religion in the time of the Spanish con- there was sounded the dismal drum of quest, has perished from the earth and Huichilobos,” Diaz wrote, “and many that it is known today only in such other shells and horns and things like accounts as that of Bernal Diaz del trumpets and the sound of them all was Castillo the Conquistador.