Cocoliztli in New Spain
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Cocoliztli in New Spain
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Epidemic diseases were introduced during the Spanish Conquest and the colonization of Mexico. Cocoliztli or in the Aztec language, Nahuatl, meaning “sickness” or “pestilence” was one of the most devastating and mysterious epidemic viruses that swept across Mexico in 1545, and again in 1576. Cocoliztli causes a wide range of symptoms, for example, hemorrhagic bleeding, gangrene, hallucinations, seizures, and dysentery. The plague struck New Spain and stretched within a circle of about 400 miles causing widespread regional depopulation. The lack of rainfall during the time of the disease made Mexico a breeding ground for cocoliztli. There has been a longstanding debate over what caused the cocolitzli outbreak. However, new evidence shown in DNA from 16th-century cocolitzli victims points to Salmonella as a new contender of the epidemic or the bacteria that causes paratyphoid fever. Paratyphoid fever spreads through food or water polluted with the feces of a sick person. In addition to bringing the bacteria over to the New World, it is possible that the Spanish provoked the spread through cruel treatment and poor living conditions of the indigenous people under the Encomienda System of New Spain. The cocoliztli epidemic from 1576 to 1578 killed approximately 2.5 million people or about 50% of the remaining indigenous population. The indigenous populations were the first to encounter cocolitzli, then Spanish populations, followed by areas inhabited by Africans. Francisco Hernández, a Spanish physician in Mexico, conducted autopsies in 1576 on Indians who died from cocoliztli in hopes of finding a cure. Hernández did not use pictures in presentations of his autopsy findings. Instead, Hernández used extremely graphic descriptions to describe the plagued Indian bodies. The autopsies provided gruesome accounts of the corpses as literally rotting from the inside out, to the point of evilness. Hernández described the colors of the infected Indian’s bodies using statements such as “the entire body and eyes would turn yellow along with delirium and confusion…people’s tongues would dry out and turn black, and their urine would turn green or even black.” Hernández studied and prescribed various remedies including herbal medication to try to eliminate the virus from the body. Some of the treatments, such as the drumstick tree, were used to purge fluids from the body or if the ingredients were unavailable, totoycxitl or cacamotic would purge bilious fluids and also stimulate urination to counteract the disease. Ultimately, Hernández did not discover a cure, but by conducting autopsies, he established a healing strategy to follow in an attempt to counter the illness.
Bibliography: Acuña -Soto, Rodolfo, David W. Stahle, Malcolm K. Cleaveland, and Matthew D. Therrell. "Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico." In Emerging Infectious Diseases.8, No. 4 (2002): 360-62. Balmis, Francisco Xavier. Demostración De Las Eficaces Virtudes Nuevamente Descubiertas En Las Raíces De Dos Plantas De Nueva-España. Madrid: in the press of the widow of D. Joaquin Ibarra, with superior permission, 1794. Few, Martha. “Indian Autopsy and Epidemic Disease in Early Colonial Mexico.” In Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico, 153-166. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008. Hernández, Francisco. "On the Illness in New Spain in the Year 1576, Called Cocoliztli by the Indians." In The Mexican Treasury: The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández. Edited by Simon Varey, 83-84. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Zhang, Sarah. "A New Clue to the Mystery Disease That Once Killed Most of Mexico." The Atlantic: 2018.
Demostración De Las Eficaces Virtudes Nuevamente Descubiertas En Las Raíces De Dos Plantas De Nueva-España