Badianus Manuscript

The Oldest Medical Herbal of the Americas

The Codex Badianus was created in 1552 at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, only a few decades after the conquest of Mexico. The Nahua physician Martín de la Cruz compiled its healing knowledge, while Juan Badiano, also an Indigenous scholar, translated the text into Latin. Under the title Libellus de medicinalibus Indorum herbis, they produced the earliest surviving medical work of the Americas.

The book was intended for the Spanish court. It was designed to demonstrate the knowledge of plants, diseases, and healing practices available in New Spain. The result is not merely a transplantation of European medicine, but a work in which Indigenous experience, Latin language, and colonial forms of presentation are closely intertwined.

Remedies from Head to Foot

The thirteen chapters initially follow the order of the human body. Treatment begins with ailments of the head, eyes, ears, nose, and teeth, then proceeds through the chest, abdomen, limbs, skin, and feet. Later sections address exhaustion, emotional suffering, childbirth, fever, and other conditions.

The recipes identify plants, preparations, and methods of application. Herbs are crushed, boiled, administered as drinks, ointments, baths, or poultices, and combined with animal or mineral substances. The manuscript therefore preserves a remarkably concrete picture of medical practice in sixteenth-century Mexico.

More Than Two Hundred Medicinal Plants

More than 220 plants selected for their healing properties stand at the center of the work. Many retain their Nahuatl names, while the explanations are written in Latin. Not every species can now be identified with certainty, but their names and descriptions preserve unique evidence of Indigenous knowledge of nature.

The plants are not reduced to abstract symbols. Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits are presented so that distinctive features remain visible. Botanical observation and artistic design combine in an independent form of visual knowledge.

185 Radiant Plant Images

The 185 colored illustrations are among the codex’s most striking achievements. Strong outlines, intense pigments, and rhythmically arranged plant forms recall Mesoamerican pictorial traditions, while page design, script, and book format follow European models.

Two systems of knowledge thus meet on every page. The Latin text classifies and explains, while the images preserve the forms, colors, and names of Mexican plants. The result is not a conventionally European herbal but a complex work of cultural translation in which Indigenous visual language remains unmistakably present.

Knowledge in a Colonial Setting

Martín de la Cruz and Juan Badiano worked at the Colegio de Santa Cruz, an institution where Indigenous students were taught Latin, theology, and European learning. Yet the codex shows that this environment did more than transmit European knowledge. It also made Nahua medicine legible within a new political and scholarly context.

The manuscript is therefore at once a medical guide, a botanical picture book, and a historical document. It preserves practical remedies while presenting Indigenous knowledge to the Spanish crown as learned, valuable, and worthy of recognition.

A Precious Witness to Mexican Healing

The codex unites observation, experience, and artistic precision. Its plant images are not mere decoration but essential carriers of knowledge. The arrangement by ailments and parts of the body makes the book usable as a medical manual, while Nahuatl names and Latin prose connect two linguistic worlds.

Its enduring importance lies in this exceptional synthesis: Nahua medicine, Mexican botanical knowledge, and European book culture meet in one of the most beautiful and significant medical manuscripts of the sixteenth century.