LÓPEZ DE LEÓN, PEDRO

Practitioner Bio

Born in the mid-sixteenth century in Seville, Pedro López de León studied medicine in the same city. Graduating with his degree in medicine, specializing in surgery in approx. 1578, López de León spend the next twelve years working as the head surgeon at the Hospital del Cardenal in Seville. In 1590, he was named the Royal Surgeon of the Galleys and then traveled to Cartagena de Indias where he lived the remainder of his life. López de León practiced medicine continually in Cartagena, publishing his most famous work, Práctica y teórica de los apostemas en general y particular in 1628. This work especially emphasizes treatments of scurvy, dysentery, goiters, and a plethora of venereal diseases.

No evidence exists to support López de León as a judaizer, only rumors that have filtered down through generations. His inclusion here is an acknowledgement of this possibility, as well as a recognition of López de León as a medical contemporary of other prominent surgeons in Cartagena, including Juan Méndez Nieto, Blas de Paz Pinto, and Mendo López del Campo.

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Bibliography (secondary sources relating to this practitioner)

Hernández Benito, Emiliano. La obra de López de León. Vol. 2. Estudios de Historia de La Medicina Española. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1960.

Newson, Linda A. and Susie Minchin. “Cargazones de negros en Cartagena de Indias en el siglo XVII: nutrición, salud, y mortalidad.” In Cartagena de Indias en el siglo XVII, edited by Adolfo Meisel Roca and Haroldo Calvo Stevenson, 207–44. Cartagena: Banco de la República, 2007.

Newson, Linda and Susie Minchin. From Capture to Sale: The Portuguese Slave Trade to Spanish South America in the Early Seventeenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Raso y Rodríguez, D. Enríque-José. “Cuestiones teóricas y experiencias prácticas de la cirugía de las heridas del abdomen, basadas en los conocimientos del licenciado d. Pedro López de León, médico y cirujano, vecino de la ciudad de Cartagena de Las Indias.” In Actas del congreso Español de historia de la medicina. Madrid, 1963.

Solano Alonso, Jairo. “Juan Méndez Nieto y Pedro López de León: el arte de curar en la Cartagena del siglo Xvii.” In Cartagena de Indias del siglo XVII, edited by Adolfo Meisel Roca and Haroldo Calvo Stevenson, 385–442. Cartagena: Banco de la República, 2007.

———. Salud, Cultura, y Sociedad: Cartagena de Indias, Siglos Xvi y Xvii. Barranquilla: Universidad del Atlántico, 1998.

Sotomayor Tribín, Hugo A. “Cirujano Licenciado Pedro López de León y su libro Práctica y Teórica de Las Apostemas (Siglo Xvii).” Repertorio de Medicina y Cirugía 18, no. 1 (2009): 53–64.