This slim volume undertakes to analyze the ideas upon which Náhuatl medicine was based prior to the Conquest. Martínez asserts that such medical “history” shows how man has interpreted illness and reacted to it as a “bio-psycho-social” being. He categorizes empirical, magical, and religious components in Náhuatl medicine and relates them to modern concepts of therapy, etiology, diagnosis, and prognosis. His analytical framework is both medical and anthropological. Martínez adopts James G. Frazer’s half-century-old definitions of sympathetic and contagious magic from a 1961 Spanish translation of The Golden Bough and adds illness to Bronislaw Malinowski’s list of moments in life giving rise to religious feelings.
The author seems to have had fellow physicians in mind when he wrote this long essay. Anthropologists and historians reasonably well-read in descriptions of Náhuatl-speaking Indians are not likely to encounter much novelty in this analysis. Even speculations as to the origins of certain human behaviors sound familiar.
In summary, Martínez reports that the Nahuas believed life to be a gift of the gods. It followed that illness was generally defined as a divine punishment for human misbehavior. The Nahuas made a few empirical correlations, such as cold and humidity with rheumatic ills, but they believed that the water god cured even these ailments. They also classified fractures as supernatural castigations. Despite their animistic view of disease, however, many remedies were sold in the marketplace. Martínez presents a succinct outline of the Nahua astrological calendar, with a sample of its auguries and its relation to prognosis. He mentions peyote aiding diagnosis and tobacco helping prognosis and the owl whose message of disease or death no one needed the aid of a medical practitioner to interpret.
Martínez draws data from published sources, among which the Porrúa edition of Sahagún (1956) is by far the most frequently cited. The text is enlivened by thirty illustrations drawn from codices, published works, photographs of ruins, and representations of Náhuatl supernaturals. A cloud photograph is the author’s most original contribution. Reproduction appears excellent on book paper of good quality. A text free from typographical errors pleases the eye.
