ANTILIA

REVISTA ESPAÑOLA DE HISTORIA DE LAS CIENCIAS DE LA NATURALEZA
Y DE LA TECNOLOGÍA
SPANISH JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF NATURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY

Historia de la Biología. Facultad de Biología.
Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
DL: M-34954-1995.                                                                                  ISSN: 1136-2049.

1995. Vol. I. Article Nº 2.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND POWER IN THE ILLUSTRATED SPAIN: TOWARD THE COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY THROUGH THE MEDICINAL BOTANY

Antonio González Bueno.
Facultad de Farmacia. Universidad Complutense. 28040-Madrid. España.
Raul Rodríguez Nozal.
Centre de Recherches Latino-Americaines (C.N.R.S. URA 2007). Université de Poitiers. 86022-Poitiers. Francia.

Scientific knowledge and power in the Illustrated Spain: toward the commercial supremacy through the medicinal botany.

1. Introduction: the reforming Science

It is already a common place the identification of the Spanish dynastic change in the transit to 18th century with the modernization of the State. The introduction of the French political model supposed, without doubt, the presentation in Spain of a new way of understanding the scientific knowledge and the professional teachings, so that, throughout this century is attended a gradual process intended for to surpass the old scholastic knowledge in favor of the positive sciences, whose more illustrious accomplishments are especially noticeable in second half of the century (1).

The scientific knowledge, understood from a utilitarian vision, is converted thus into a tool employed by the illustrated Spanish in the reform of the State; but also in an element of power, in social promotion mechanism and, thus, ascent route in a new social structure, where these new knowledge are constituted in prestige element and way of approximation to the absolute throne of the Monarch, something which will permit the courtier rise of their firm allies in the political, social and economic restructuring of the country (2). Practice of positive sciences must be understood more as a favorable attitude to the reform sponsored by the new dynasty than as a rational arrangement toward the theoretical development of the new disciplines, more a political position than scientific.

The Crown will help the introduction of these new disciplines through the common mechanisms to the rest of the illustrated reforms: centralization, militarization, creation of institutions of new mold, new processes of institucionalization, stays abroad, etc (3). But the introduction of these new disciplines does not put up the necessary intrascientific critical, imports more the use of Science than itself; so that the methodological nature preoccupations required for the own advance of the knowledge remain removed, unless exceptions, from this incorporator process of new knowledge (4).

Among the reforms considered necessary by the advisors of the new Spanish dynasty, the Army and the Health (5) would be especially favoured with the introduction of positive knowledge. The military reorganization was, without doubt, the high-priority objective; according to the borbonic viewpoint the Army was a bastions of the State, indispensable to assault future reforms in other stratums; the accommodation of the Army to the new defensive needs and of expansion of the Spanish Crown compelled to the specialists training in disciplines and activities such as naval construction, squares' fortification, cartography, hydrography, nautical pilotage, etc., what brought with itself a certain development, under practical suppositions, of some scientific disciplines, as Mathematics and Physics, intimately related to these activities (6).

If the Armies needed a renovation to be adapted to the requirements imposed by the international context, the Health needed an urgent remodeling to surpass the obsolete knowledge of professionals and the archaic administrative studding (7). The reform of the Surgery was carried out thanks to the creation of new Colleges (Cadiz, Barcelona and Madrid) that procured to endow to this profession of a consideration and importance until then unthinkable (8). The medical renovation went through the necessary remodeling of the university teachings imparted in the Spanish medical schools (Valladolid, Salamanca, Alcalá de Henares, Santiago, Oviedo, Granada and Valencia) (9). The restructuring of the Pharmacy knew a first period, close to the arrival of Felipe V, during which one faced meaningful changes in the Botica Real and the Farmacia Militar, always under criteria and with personnel of French origin (10). The most important reform in the Spanish sanitary structure would be produced in 1780, the Protomedicato was split into three independent Audiencias: Surgery, Pharmacy and Medicine. With spirit of modifying the old union teaching model, followed by the pharmacists, is endowed an institution of recent creation, the Real Jardín Botánico, of educational capacity to form new professional imbued of the practical Chemistry and Botany knowledge, accurate for the development of these and of the others sanitary professions (11).

2. Scientific policy and botany expeditions.

If the utilitarian attitude before Science results a common element to the different illustrated thought, the positions before the commercial relationships with the American colonies result opposing; faced to the continuists of the traffic of precious metals is raised a new line, defended by Pedro Rodríguez Campomanes, where the colonies become exclusive matter suppliers to the Metropolis, what would be occupied of regularise the trade with the rest of the Empires through the control of ports and goods. Both visions, and the hybrids, would be maintained in the complex political situation of the Spain of the 18th century, worsened after the sign of the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, that recognized, in practice, the English superiority in the oceanic routes.

The Spanish statesmen of the last fourth of the 18th century had already a sufficient ideological wealth to approach, with a new vision, the commercial relationships with the American colonies; the action that should be converted in a great intervention project into the American world answered, as in so many other occasions of the illustrated period, to a "state of need" created, not only within country, but by pressures of other European Courts; in this occasion the motive was a request, formulated, around the beginning of 1776, by the French minister A.M. Turgot, ask for permit of the Spanish Crown to explore the territories of the Viceroyalty of Peru. The situation was not new, Spain had participated already in other French expeditions of scientific character in American lands (12), but in this occasion the Government of Carlos III claimed for itself the direction of the enterprise, something which was constituted an absolute novelty compared to the previous joint experiences.

To confront the French proposal, spanish authorities managed the own expeditionary project, built with urgency, of objectives little accurate, but in the which one was underlying the convenience of acclimating American plants in Spanish soil, to image of the fisiocratic idea that inspired the proposal of A. M. Turgot (13). The project would remain under the guidance of the Secretaría de Indias, governed by Joseph Gálvez; the technical aspects, such as election and preparation of the expeditionary personnel or draft the instructions and manual for vegetables' transportation, would be entrusted to C. Gómez Ortega, First Professor of the Real Jardín Botánico of Madrid (14); the Count of Floridablanca, from his almighty Secretaría de Estado, would endorse the enterprise. This project, of objectives only drawn in its beginnings, would be seen substantially remodeled during its development; in it would meet interest of very assorted nature: international relationships, health reform, introduction in America of new Sciences, remodeling of the colonial market, Spanish cultural backing, creation of new institutions, etc. (15). This utopian and ambitious project was conceived, as so many other illustrated performances, in connection with mobile personnel, in it outweighed more the interest of their managing than the own of the State; operated to economic impulses, not always focused in the same way, but where it is possible to glimpse a certain motor idea, built with mercantilist dyes, and destined personal enrichment through the commercial monopoly of some medicinal plants. This complex intentions studding, underlying to the own expeditionary program, could be structured in four stages: the expeditionary development itself, the publication of an Flora Americana, the pharmacological plants investigation with medicinal virtues and the commercial development of these drugs. We will analyze separately each of these phases to offer then a global analysis of the causes that motivated the failure of this complex project.

2.1. The expeditionary process

To the urgency with which were conceived the first elements to use in the expeditionary project answers the publication, in 1779, of an Instrucción sobre el modo más seguro y económico de transportar plantas vivas... (16) a booklet (70 pages) directed to serve as guide to all those linked persons, one way or another, to the project; this text does not suppose any novelty on similar texts published previously; but in it remains already patent the guidelines impregnated by C. Gómez Ortega to the project; a quantitative analysis of the materials requested in the Instrucción... states his interest by promoting the search of vegetables with medicinal virtues and, from among these, required with more emphasis are the febrifuge plants (very especially the cinchona bark) and the antivenereal, in an attempt of finding in the rich medicine of the American nature the elements with those which to eliminate the symptoms and diseases more disquieting of the Old Continent (17).

The confirmation of the pharmacological character of this enterprise remains manifests in the seed shipments received in the Metropolis, originating from the expedition to the Viceroyalty of Peru (18); after a first stage in which the project seems conditioned by the French Joseph Dombey, when edible plant acclimatizations are attempted, is attended a progressive interest by the medicinal kinds and the texts drafted by the spanish expeditionary, after their return to Spain, states the interest of its editors in the medicinal usefulness of what is described, until the extreme that the "vires et usus" that accompanies to the taxonomic description seems be converted into the real objective of the study (19), in them continue prevailing the interest by demonstrating the abundance and variety of the American lands in plants with febrifuges, purgative and digestive virtues. A similar analysis in the botanical texts elaborated by the expeditionary to Nueva España states results very close to the previously cited (20); the studies accomplished by the expeditionary in New Spain in the Hospital General de Naturales of Mexico confirms our affirmation (21).

The expeditions to the Viceroyalty of Peru, with its subsequent extension to the Chilean territory, and of New Spain are the only submitted directly to the control of C. Gómez Ortega and in those which the direccionality imposed by him to the project is glimpsed with greater clarity (22); certainly they were not the only accomplished during the period illustrated (23), but in the remainders, yet when also intervened C. Gómez Ortega in its organization, the motives of the trip or the expeditionary escaped to the interest pursued by the First Professor of the Real Jardín and his group; the Expedition of José Celestino Mutis to the New Granada Kingdom (1783-1808) was managed from Colombia, thinking more on the native benefit than metropolitan (24); the Commission of Juan de Cuéllar to Philippines (1786-1801) is in reality a trip sponsored by the Real Compañía de Filipinas though supported and sheltered by the agents of the Spanish scientific policy, its initial objectives were not pharmacological but fisiocratics (25); the naturalists of the Commission of the Count of Mopox to the island of Cuba (1796-1802) (26) and of the Expedition Malaspina (1789-1794) (27) did not enjoy the same action freedom that who sent to New Spain or to Peru, and its investigations remain submitted to the other ends pursued by its respective expeditions.

The project arranged by C. Gómez Ortega only counted for its continuation with the material vegetable provided by the expeditionary to the viceroyalties of Peru and New Spain, the rest, though partially accessible for the Real Jardín were not integrated in the traced plans by the First Professor (28), therefore his primitive idea of seeing published the Flora Americana there was of remaining reduced to the issue of the Floras of Peru and Chile and, perhaps, of New Spain.

2.2. The publication of the Flora Americana.

The Real Jardín was the commissioned institution to acclimating the live material sent to the Metropolis, there were cultivated the seeds and flower pot sent, not only, by the expeditionary, also by the correspondents of the institution in american lands (29); but it was not this the place elected to continue the project arranged by C. Gómez Ortega (30). The return of the Peruvian Expedition, in 1788, outlined the need to endow a house adapted to the american materials and to assign to the expeditionary a space where be able to peak the draft projects undertaken in American lands; for such end was created an institution of new mold, the "Oficina de la Flora Americana", voted with charge to the donations requested to the colonies to publish the "Flora Americana".

The new establishment was not administrative department of the Secretaría de Estado, as was occurring with the rest of the scientific institutions of the era, it was assigned to the Secretaría de Indias (1777-1787), first, and then to Gracia y Justicia (Despacho de Indias) (1787-1808); this singular status, as Indias establishment and not as scientific institution, it will be key throughout its existence, as also it will be its constant to become by different official dependencies: Indias (1808-1813), Ultramar (1813-1815), Gracia y Justicia (1815-1820), Gobernación de la Península (1820-1823), Estado (1823-1833), Fomento General del Reino (1833-1834), Interior (1834-1835) and Gobernación de la Península (1835 -1836) (31).

The publication project of the Flora Peruviana was approved by Real Order of 27-I-1790; since then, and before, having an own headquarters, the Peruvian expeditionary began to work in a superb editorial project, conceived with an unusual magnificence. First collected its material (books and herbal) guarded in the Secretarñia de Gracia y Justicia; then they worked the descriptions and drawings of the new discovered genera in the Peru and Chile kingdoms; once it finished this phase, studied the genera known and "wrong observed", to continue with the descriptions of those taxons originating from new genera and, after, the species of genera already known. A work sequence that occupied the botanists and drawing, first in their own domiciles and then in the Oficina de la Flora Americana, during a period understood between 1790 and 1803 (32); though the institution lived until 1835, the work accomplished in it during the subsequent years to 1805 can be considered non-existent.

A work of this importance needed of an important chalcographic infrastructure that assaulted the engraving work of the plates that would have of illustrators the Flora; C. Gómez Ortega attempted to control also these tasks through the creation of an engravers school and illuminating specialized in topics of natural history; the project did not go ahead, and the plates of the Flora Peruviana were commissioned to professional engravers, something that would provoke so high expenses that ended by wind up the budget of this company; in total were engraved 536 plates and intervened fifty one engravers, some of recognized professional height (33).

The impression of the monumental "Flora Peruviana" was entrusted to Gabriel de Sancha, heir of the prestigious printed of his father, an election closer to particular interest than to the general interest of the work. This colossal editorial program remained incomplete; the screw press of Sancha only printed a Prodromus (Madrid, 1794), a Systema vegetabilium (Madrid, 1798) and the first three volumes of a Flora Peruviana et Chilense (Madrid, 1798-1802), programmed initially in twelve volumes (34); a poor balance, if we have into account that this was the only one expedition that saw published its floristic results.

2.3. The pharmacological investigation of American plants.

The Real Jardín had, during the last third of the 18th century, the material and human means, to accomplish pharmacological experiment (35), but the pharmacotherapeutic discussion's forum was the Real Academia Medica Matritense; an institution that, in absence of a Sciences Academy in the capital, took the scientific responsibility not only of the medical knowledge but of those others related to the Natural History; to the Real Academia Medica Matritense corresponded also the edition of the national Pharmacopeia, the code for the preparation of the medicines.

The pharmacological projects on American plants, discussed in the Real Academia de Medicina, had as referees to the expeditionary linked to the expeditions transacted by C. Gómez Ortega; in particular to Hipólito Ruiz and, in second place, to José Pavón and the botanists displaced New Spain: Vicente Cervantes, Martín Sessé and Mariano Mociño (36).

H. Ruiz did not use for his pharmacotherapeutic the means of the Real Jardín, his experiences, as those of the botanists located in New Spain, were accomplished in colonial territory, yet when its checking would be, occasionally, carried out by medical of the Metropolis; the most meaningful contributions of H. Ruiz turn in connection with the ratania, calaguala, canchalagua, china peruana, yalhoy (37), bejuco de la estrella (38)' and, very in particular, on the Chinchona; all his projects are approached the same aspects: botany description of the vegetable, notes on its habitat, procedures for its compilation, dried, packing and transportation, virtues and medicinal uses and relationship with pharmaceutical chemical and clinical studies accomplished on the vegetable (39). His contributions to the pharmacology of the genera Cinchona L., especially meaningful, were collected in three fundamental texts: Quinología (Madrid, 1792), Suplemento de la Quinología (Madrid, 1801 -signed with J. Pavón-) and a Compendio historico-Médico-Comercial de las quinas, unpublished until 1992 (40); these studies, in those continued the same standard that in the others pharmacological projects, counted on the continued materials contribution sponsored by the aggregates to this expedition, who continued providing of materials to the Oficina de la Flora Americana (41).

José Pavón was inclining more toward the projects of taxonomic character, moved away from the Botany idea defended by C. Gómez Ortega; his dissertations before the Real Academia Médica Matritense deal with the genera Araucaria, Salmia, Actinophyllum, Tovaria (42), Laurus (43) and Unanuea (44); when it is occupied of the genera Cinchona makes it from a vision strictly taxonomic (45), no showing interest by the commercial relevancy of his investigations that, also, he knew.

The projects of pharmacological character presented by the expeditionary in New Spain before the Real Academia de Medicina were scanty, only some partial studies on the croton febrífugo (46) and the rubber (47); these would not be their only contributions, to them owe also other reports on a medicinal Helianthum (48), the violeta estrellada (49), a Chirostemom (50) or the polígala mexicana (51), some of they known in our soil thanks to works utterer accomplished from the Anales de Ciencias Naturales, but lacking of the scientific censorship from that institution. The studies of the expeditionary American have its definitive countersignature in the IV edition of the Farmacopea Hispana (Madrid, 1817); in it will be introduced officially in therapeutic an American anti-haemorragic of certain success, Krameria triandra Ruiz & Pav., but it more meaningful is the utilization of the denominations proposed by H. Ruiz and J. Pavón to discern the medicinal Cinchona barks (Cinchona lanceolata Ruiz & Pav. and Cinchona nitida Ruiz & Pav.) (52); years before, in the published issue in 1803, already had been made to appear the root of ágave, but this drug hardly had resonance in the rest of the European Codes. The American products incorporation to the Spanish Pharmacopeia, and from it to the rest of the Europeans, would have been even greater if the Spanish scientific authorities might have had in consideration the studies of H. Ruiz and J. Pavón on the cainca or the coca, or those of V. Cervantes on the rubber, plants these that will take our Codes of the Frenchs and German during second half of the century XIX. (53)

2.4. The commercial development.

The last phase of the project arranged by C. Gómez Ortega, the marketing of the vegetables therapeutically useful through a monopoly system, did not remain more than in a desire in spite that his more close, especially H. Ruiz, accomplished interesting inquiries in this sense; his effort was diversified in three fronts: tried to prove that some present drugs in the ultramarine Spanish territories had the same medicinal virtues that other imported by our country, it is the case of the canchalagua, china peruviana or bejuco de la estrella, for those that was proclaiming its employment as election drugs as compared to the imported; for a group of plants with proven medicinal virtues, and very used in therapeutic, defended an extensive cultivation in American lands and the creation of a system of "monopoly", a proposal very close to that some nearby statesmen to the Monarch were defending for the case of the Peruvian cinchonas (54) and novo-granadinas (55); but the proposal seems be approximated yet more to the maintained by some other courtier apothecaries, more interested in the establishment of personal monopolies, in this case established in connection with the ratanhia, a product that there would be made by persons of their confidence in American lands and marketed from their own medicine with destination to the Europe rest; in fact, a similar trade system that was already maintaining the own C. Gómez Ortega with other national origin products (56).

3. The possible causes of a failure.

The Spanish expeditionary project was born ballasted by the primacy of the personal interest against to those of State; the inhibition of Floridablanca, of this and of the other reformist programs after the French revolutionary events of 1789, and the premature death of J. Gálvez, would spoil the plans of the First Professor of the Real Jardín who, in spite all the misadventures, attempted to save the dying project from the Casa de la Flora Americana, an autonomous and marginal institution, maintained in operation by the slow motion state bureaucracy until 1831 (57).

A costly project, and excessively subordinated to the interest of its governing dome, could not by less than be shown unstable and to suffer with the political changes happened during the last years of the 18th century and the conflicting first third of the 19th century; an instability that could be illustrated in the life of the own solitary institution, the "Casa de la Flora American", whose margination states its own geographical location, removed from the space of the Paseo del Prado of Madrid, fashion place in the capital and preferential environment for the scientific centers of new mold, it was located in full heart of the Madrid of the Austrias, a decision that is only justified from the mere personal interest, in this case the election of the headquarters remains conditioned to vote the housing expenses of the First Official of the Despaho de Indias in the Secretaría de Gracia y Justicia, Francisco Cerdá y Rico; an unstable situation as it was the rest of the locations of the establishment, until seven different throughout its history, no of them accomplished with the purpose of improving its conditions or of including it in the ambient scientific of the Madrid of this era, all the movements were accomplished by external motives to the operation of this institution.

The commissioned institution with publishing the Flora Americana was not considered, to administrative effects, as a scientific center but as an Indias Establishment, thus it tests its straddle within the Secretaría de Ultramar (first in the Secretaría de Indias and then in the Despacho de Indias of the Secretaría de Gracia y Justicia), instead of forming part of the Primera Secretaría de Estado, as the rest of scientific institutions of similar court. The same occurred with its geographical location, it was also a nomadic establishment for its administrative dependency; its files ran by different Ministeries, something which would provoke an administrative chaos of such nature that would prevent, in some moments, the accomplishment of matters so daily as the payment of the wages and the rent of the headquarters of this institution, and would contribute to increase the sensation of provisionality and abandonment in the one which this lived.

The financing to publish the "Flora Americana", and yet to maintain the establishment and personnel to the service of this company, it did not originate of the state arks, it was the result of a collection affected in all the Spanish colonial territories; an also marginal situation, as it would be the attempt of C. Gómez Ortega of creating one engravers school and illuminating specialized in works of Natural History, certainly an utopic plan.

To these causes fits to add those related to the bad economic and the primacy of the particular interest as compared to the own of the project, such the designation of the printer of the work, Gabriel de Sancha, accomplished more in function of its own profit than in general interest of the work.

This instability environment and personalism that surrounded to the project had its logic correspondence in the work environment of the botanists and drawing assigned to the project; the intrigues and the personal confrontations were not absent of the Oficina Botánica; the lack of coordination between the agents of the project, the personal and familiar alliances between its participating and the improvisation in which this was seen plunged, had its demonstration in the rarefied occupational environment lived in this institution, another than the conducive factors to the failure of the illustrated expeditionary project transacted by C. Gómez Ortega.

Notes.

1. Jean Sarrailh, La España ilustrada en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII (Madrid, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1979).

2. Antonio Lafuente, "Las expediciones científicas del setecientos y la nueva relación del científico con el Estado". Revista de Indias, 47(180) (1987), p. 373-378.

3. Richar Herr, España y la Revolución del siglo XVIII. (Madrid, Aguilar, 1975); Antonio Domínguez Ortiz, Carlos III y la España de la Ilustración. (Madrid, Alizanza Editorial 1988); Miguel Artola, "América en el pensamiento español del siglo XVIII". Revista de Indias, 115-118 (1969), p. 51-77; José María Jover Zamora (dir.), Historia de España, 31. [La época de la Ilustración. El Estado y la Cultura (1759-1808)]. (Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1987).

4. Antonio González Bueno, "Penetración y difusión de las teorías botánicas en la España ilustrada". In: Joaquín Fernández Pérez et al. (eds.) Ciencia, Técnica y Estado en la España ilustrada. (Madrid-Zaragoza, MEC-Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y las Técnicas, 1990), p. 381-395.

5. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, "Carlos III y la Ciencia Española". Anales de la Real Academia de Farmacia, 55 (1989), p. 93-99.

6. Antonio Lafuente y José Luis Peset, "Las Academias Militares y la inversión en ciencia en la España Ilustrada (1750-1760)". Dynamis, 2, (1982), p. 193-209.

7. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, "La profesión farmacéutica: del gremialismo al corporativismo". In: José Luis Peset (ed.) La Ciencia Moderna y el Nuevo Mundo (Madrid, CSIC, 1985), p. 395-421; Mª del Carmen Calleja Folguera, "Centralización y unificación de la administración sanitaria española durante el siglo XVIII". Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Historia de la Farmacia, 147 (1986), p. 189-210.

8. Antonio Lafuente, Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento y Mª del Carmen Calleja Folguera, "Los profesionales de la sanidad tras su identidad en la Ilustración española". In: José Manuel Sánchez Ron (ed.) Ciencia y Sociedad en España: de la Ilustración a la Guerra Civil (Madrid, CSIC - El Arquero, 1988), p. 71-92; Mª del Carmen Calleja Folguera, La Reforma Sanitaria en la España Ilustrada (Madrid, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1988).

9. Mariano Peset y José Luis Peset, La Universidad Española (siglos XVIII y XIX): Despotismo ilustrado y Revolución liberal. (Madrid, Taurus, 1974).

10. Antonio González Bueno y Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, "Ciencia y Farmacia durante la Ilustración". In: Carlos III y la Ciencia de la Ilustración, op. cit, p. 127-140.

11. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, "Química, Botánica y Farmacia en España a finales del siglo XVIII". In: Patricia Aceves Pastrana (ed.) La Química en Europa y América (Siglos XVIII y XIX). (México, U.A.M. 1994), p. 157-175; Ib., "El Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid durante el reinado de Carlos III." In: Carlos III y la Ciencia de la Ilustración op. cit., p. 247-261.

12. Antonio Lafuente y Antonio Mazuecos, Los caballeros del punto fijo. Ciencia, política y aventura en la expedición geodésica hispano-francesa al virreinato del Perú en el siglo XVIII. (Madrid, Serbal, 1987). Salvador Bernabéu Albert, "La expedición hispano-francesa a medir el paso de Venus". In: Carlos III y la ciencia de la Ilustración, op. cit., p. 313-329.

13. Antonio González Bueno, "La aclimatación de plantas americanas en los jardines peninsulares". In: Joaquín Fernández Pérez et. al. (eds.), La Agricultura Viajera. Cultivos y manufacturas de plantas industriales y alimentarias en España y en la América virreinal. (Barcelona, Lunwerg Editorial, 1990), p. 37-51.

14. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, Ciencia de Cámara. Casimiro Gómez Ortega (1741-1818) el científico cortesano. (Madrid, CSIC, 1992); Ib., "Casimiro Gómez Ortega y la organización de las expediciones botánicas ultramarinas". In: Belén Sánchez et. al. (eds.) La Real Expedición Botánica a Nueva España, 1787-1803. (Madrid, Turner, 1987), p. 79-94.

15. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento, La Ilusión Quebrada. Botánica, Sanidad y Política Científica en la España Ilustrada. (Barcelona, Serbal, 1988); Ib., "Las expectativas metropolitanas respecto a las Expediciones botánicas ilustradas". In: A.R. Díez Torre et al. (coord.) La Ciencia española en Ultramar. (Madrid, Doce Calles, 1991), p. 129-141.

16. There are a facsimil edition (Burgos, Fundación Ciencias de la Salud, 1992), with a preliminary study of Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento.

17. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento y Antonio González Bueno, "Política científica y expediciones botánicas en el programa colonial español ilustrado". In: A. Lafuente et al. (eds.) Mundialización de la ciencia y cultura nacional. (Madrid, Doce Calles, 1993), p. 331-339.

18. Arthur R. Steele, Flores para el Rey. La Expedición de Ruiz y Pavón y la Flora del Perú (1777- 1788). (Barcelona, Serbal, 1982); Antonio González Bueno (ed.) La Expedición al Virreinato del Perú (1777-1788). 2 vols. (Barcelona, Lunwerg, 1988).

19. Francisco Javier Puerto Sarmiento et al., "Vires et usus: notas sobre etnobotánica peruana en los diarios de Hipólito Ruiz (1777-1788)". In: Le piante medicinali e il loro impiego in farmacia nel corso dei secoli. (Piacenza, Academia Italiana di Storia della Farmacia, 1989), p. 171-175.

20. Antonio González Bueno, "Virtudes y usos de la Flora Americana: una aproximación al carácter utilitario de las Expediciones Botánicas en la España ilustrada". In: Antonio Lafuente et al. (eds.) Ciencia colonial en América. (Madrid, Alianza Editorial, 1992), p. 78-90; Ib., "La utilidad de la Flora Americana en el proyecto expedicionario de la España ilustrada". Asclepio, 48(2) (1995), p. 75- 85. Ib., "El Arcano de la Salud: la recepción de lamateria médica vegetal americana en España". In: Patricia Aceves Pastrana (Ed.), La Química en Europa y América op. cit. , p. 141-156.