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1. AMS, sec. 11, vol. 20; Pérez Moreda, Las crisis de mortalidad, 252–53. 2. AMS, sec. 10, 1580 [3]. 8 signs of contagious disease There is suspicion that there are contagious diseases. —diego del postigo T he year 1580 became known as the “year of the moquillo [mucus ],” a graphic reminder of the highly contagious disease that swept through Spain, affecting and killing rich and poor alike. The influenza epidemic lasted only three months, but if we are to believe contemporaries, the mortality was high.According to one report, twelve thousand people died in Seville by year’s end.1 Throughout that same year, the city council had faced additional challenges, ranging from food shortages, crop failures, locusts, and Morisco unrest to a tussle with the Inquisition; in addition, Seville loyally supported King Philip’s claims to the Portuguese throne with men and supplies as well as by quartering and provisioning soldiers. The threat of plague, though not acute, was present throughout the year, and the governor, along with the cabildo, never lifted the measures that had been adopted to guard the city from the contagion. During the month of January 1581, the question of payment for the plague guards surfaced on several occasions. Finally, at the end of the month, the cabildo agreed with the plague commission’s decision that, with the Count of Villar’s authorization, countersigned by two plague deputies, the city steward should disburse the funds necessary to cover the costs “of things related to the said plague.”2 At the same time, the cabildo debated whether to continue to safeguard entrance to the city in all the places where watchmen had been posted. The councilors decided that guards could be withdrawn from some spots because it seemed the city was now well enough protected. They also signs of contagious disease | 63 3. According to documents in Seville’s Municipal Archive, there were forty-two boticas in 1594 (AMS, sec. 13, siglo XVI, vol. 1, doc. 114) and forty-nine in 1631 (AMS, sec. 13, siglo XVII, vol. 2, doc. 6). The exact number of pharmacies in Seville in the early 1580s is not known, but there must have been more or less forty. 4. Mercedes Fernández-Carrión and José Luis Valverde, Farmacia y sociedad en Sevilla en el siglo XVI (Seville: Biblioteca de Temas Sevillanos, 1985), 15–30; María Soledad Campos Díez, El Real Tribunal del Protomedicato castellano (siglos XIV–XIX) (Cuenca, Spain: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1999), 65–71. ordered that any gates that had been removed should be placed in a storage house. The threat of contagious disease brought with it another concern for the cabildo : the condition of the boticas and the supply of medicine in the city. There were approximately forty boticas in Seville at this time, scattered throughout the various parishes; some were independent, others were associated with a hospital .3 There was also a dispensary in the Royal Jail, and it was the city that paid for the medicines administered there. Boticarios (pharmacists) were trained as apprentices by another apothecary during a period of several years, receiving shelter and food in addition to the practical knowledge of how to produce numerous medicinal concoctions using plants and animal parts or products, as well as minerals and metals. In theory, the pharmacists were supposed to know Latin, but many did not. They were licensed following an examination by the Protomedicato and after paying the requisite fee for the test. It was determined that anyone wishing to become a boticario would need a large enough capital (in 1591 it was fixed at five hundred ducats) to be able to equip and maintain an apothecary’s shop. Pharmacies were regularly inspected in Seville. The governor ordered these inspections, which were normally carried out by two council members, a physician, and an apothecary, who was to be an outsider. The inspectors reviewed the credentials of the boticario and the quality and freshness of his medicines and raw products. Any infractions resulted in fines.4 On 9 February 1581 the Count of Villar informed the cabildo that it was time to inspect the pharmacies, because “it is imperative that the medicines that they have are those that are especially useful at this time which is somewhat suspect of being unhealthy.” To bring in an outside boticario for the inspection, the council would need to authorize his payment from the city’s propios. Chief Justice Martín Guti...

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