Diego Álvarez Chanca
Encyclopedia
Diego Alvarez Chanca was a physician and companion of Christopher Columbus
.
Chanca was a physician-in-ordinary to Catholic Mand Isabella, which is how he was introduced to Columbus. He was appointed by the Crown to accompany Columbus' second expedition to America in 1493. Shortly after landing on Haiti
, Columbus suffered from an attack of malarial fever
, which Chanca successfully treated. Several other members of the crew were also treated for malaria during this period.
Chanca's opinion was also sought when Columbus was selecting a site for his first settlement, Isabella. While there, Chanca wrote a letter to the municipal council of his native city, which was the first document describing the flora, the fauna, the ethnology, and the ethnography of America.
After his return to Spain in February 1494, he published in 1506 a medical treatise entitled Para curar el mal de Costado (The Trentment of Pleurisy), and in 1514, he published a work in Latin criticizing a book entitled De conservanda juventute et retardanda senectute, the work of Amaldo de Villanova, a brother-physician.
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
.
Chanca was a physician-in-ordinary to Catholic Mand Isabella, which is how he was introduced to Columbus. He was appointed by the Crown to accompany Columbus' second expedition to America in 1493. Shortly after landing on Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Columbus suffered from an attack of malarial fever
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, which Chanca successfully treated. Several other members of the crew were also treated for malaria during this period.
Chanca's opinion was also sought when Columbus was selecting a site for his first settlement, Isabella. While there, Chanca wrote a letter to the municipal council of his native city, which was the first document describing the flora, the fauna, the ethnology, and the ethnography of America.
After his return to Spain in February 1494, he published in 1506 a medical treatise entitled Para curar el mal de Costado (The Trentment of Pleurisy), and in 1514, he published a work in Latin criticizing a book entitled De conservanda juventute et retardanda senectute, the work of Amaldo de Villanova, a brother-physician.