Healing Plants of the Mexica: A New Translation from the Florentine Codex

In the late 16th century, Nahua doctors contributed their expert knowledge of healing and medical plants to a codex on Mexican culture that was then being compiled by Bernardino de Sahagún, a Spanish missionary priest and teacher at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. This document is now known as The General History of the Things of New Spain, or the Florentine Codex.

The present volume is a new translation of the portion of the Florentine Codex (Book 11, Paragraph 7) that records the botanical wisdom of these doctors. It describes more than a hundred healing herbs—as well as poisons and psychedelics—used by the Mexica at the time of the Spanish conquest. This book is essential reading for the student of botany, historical or modern, and for the curanderx looking to deepen their understanding of Mexica healing traditions.