A historical study of medicine must take into account not only the records collected during the span of modern civilization, but also what is known of the healing arts practiced in earlier periods of civilization. In Mexico, on whose soil flourished one of the most highly developed Indian cultures, the medical wisdom and skill of its people reached a particularly high level. Fortunately, some details of the medical activities of those earlier times are available in the form of aboriginal documentary evidence and the chronicles of the Spanish conquerors.
The inhabitants of Mexico were essentially an agricultural people. That they were intensely interested in horticulture is evident in their deification of some flowers and plants. They established botanical gardens, with special emphasis on plants having medicinal attributes, several centuries before anything of a like nature appeared in Europe. Moctezuma I, the Aztec emperor, created such a